Pokémon Azure
by HeleneAlexandra
Summary: SEQUEL TO POKÉMON LAPIS: Read that first. Their enemies have been taking from Gina and her friends all their lives. It's time to start taking back. Fifth of six arcs. Long WIP series. Content rating due to profane language and mild violence.
1. Unavailable :Gina:

Pokémon Azure

Chapter 1: Unavailable

(Gina Ikeda)

 _In spite of the violence that befell Pallet, Kanto's smallest town is staying quiet._ Herald _investigators have been met largely by resistance and, at times, outright hostility while trying to bring information to its readership._

" _You aren't getting anything from us," Mrs. Yatsuko Harada told Herald reporters this past Sunday. "You've already run our kids out of town, you're crazy if you think we'll give you dirt on them."_

 _Gina's mother, Rachel Ikeda, is still unavailable for comment._

Gina had no idea what compelled her to keep up on the news. Perhaps it was ego, or morbid curiosity; she'd never been in the papers before, not really. She didn't count the one story that had run in Cerulean when she, Jason and Orion had reported the suspicious activity in Mt. Moon. She hadn't even been mentioned by name then.

Some of the articles referred to her by her birth name, Gene. A half-hearted joke drifted around in the back of her mind with nowhere to go and no one to tell it to. _Maybe people will think it's short for Eugene and will look for a guy instead._

No dice, though; they were all of age now, save for Blake who was right on the cusp, and their photos had run in all the papers multiple times. Gina was beginning to grind her teeth while awake, too.

It had been two months since Pallet.

For a time their team had fallen into the old habits—talking about the foes they faced, comparing notes and brainstorming. Orion had quickly established that he didn't recognize the four others who had been with Anderton and Mason in Pallet. The consensus was that they were Alpha gene subjects and appeared to be taking orders from Anderton and Mason. Though they were likely subordinates they were no less dangerous; after all, one had attacked Orion with a knife and another had tried to electrocute Mr. Broderick atop Pallet's wall. These men and women had actively tried to kill them and would again if given the chance. They were in hiding as much for their own safety as their families'.

Gina clicked the side button on her new Dex to kill the screen. It still felt wrong and a little foreign in her hands. She had just pocketed it when the distant sounds of two warbling sets of screams reached her, vaguely, one high and reedy, one low and bassy. Gina got to her feet, her long hair clinging to the backs of her upper arms with static electricity, and followed them. She was getting used to the prickle in the air, that arrested hum of energy, actualized or potential. It was a little hard to tell sometimes if the atmosphere felt unbearable because of a fluctuation in the output of a den of Magnemite or because she and her friends lived, breathed, and drank tension with every meal.

Even Jason's father, who should have been at home in the abandoned Power Plant, spent his days in agitated, stony silence, though Gina reasoned that could just be his MO. They had all the time in the world, nowhere to go and no goal safe enough to pursue yet.

As a result, they'd trained. Beth's stubbornly unchanged Goldeen had at last joined the ranks of the evolved Pokémon, evidently only needing some hard training outside his comfort zone. There was more than enough of that to be had here, where he was, quite literally, swimming in type disadvantage.

Their other evolution had been achieved through Jason's patented "train in the place of all biological needs" method.

The new Gyarados screamed and dove forward for Aerodactyl, trying to catch her in the midsection with a Tackle that turned midway through into a Bite. Aerodactyl flapped her considerable wingspan once, for just enough lift to catch Gyarados in the face with both of her clawed feet. It was a messy and imprecise grab and Gyarados' jaws closed on Aerodactyl's leg. In spite of a short screech of pain, Aerodactyl executed a double Wing Attack to both sides of Gyarados' face and Jason's Water-type released his hold involuntarily. Aerodactyl lashed out with her spaded tail and a shout from below cut through the din of the battle.

"Up!" Jason shouted.

Aerodactyl liked to rely on her flying capabilities, but Gyarados could fly, too. Jason's newest evolved team member glided skyward just enough to get away from the tail, which glanced off his thick, scaly hide. A deafening series of rattling clacks echoed through the vaulted ceilings. Gyarados retaliated by thrashing his long, ropy body at Aerodactyl, but a second later she blasted him head-on with Supersonic.

The attack stuck; it stuck for almost every battle Gina had witnessed between these two. Gyarados thrashed and bellowed, rolled to the side and shook his head from side to side, but Jason did not call for a break.

"Work it out!" he shouted to his Pokémon, who shook his head again and caught a sharp-edged Tackle from Aerodactyl. The two Pokémon crashed through the open space, not knocking anything over; they had long ago levelled the playing field during previous battles. Gyarados snapped his jaws with loud, menacing cracks, trying to snag any part of the fossil-type he could. Aerodactyl was a whirlwind of slashing wings and spinning tails. The fight degenerated to an all-in, no-holds-barred wrestling match and Jason let it, only moving enough to get a better vantage point. When he stopped he was stock still, back straight, eyes fixed on the battle. Gina's eyes were on him.

If Fremont's MO was agitated, stony silence, Jason's was this. He reverted to his hours-long, punishing training regimes whenever they were forced to stagnate, as if he could make up for their lack of group progress by sprinting heedlessly forward in his own training. She knew even now she wasn't being ignored, though she stood a mere fifteen feet from him. He simply didn't see her; he genuinely didn't see anyone when he got like this.

They had all changed in the wake of Pallet. Some of the changes were typical and to be expected, like Jason's training. Some of them were not, and were more upsetting for it.

Some could be seen from the outside. Orion's arms and hands had stopped needing the bandages some time ago, and what was left when they went were the scars. Gina had always seen groups of scars depicted in movies as picturesque, criss-crossing patterns, placed in just such a way that they were strangely pleasing to the eye. Orion's were nothing of the sort. The longest one stretched from his wrist to his elbow and jumped from there in a broken line to carve into part of his upper arm. The shorter ones were blunt and aborted, peppering his hands like scattered commas. There was no symmetry in them, no beauty. It was just violence and chaos.

Some damage was less visible. Amaris and she had scarcely shared a word since their failure of a talk in her bedroom, and she couldn't foresee that changing any time soon. They were all quiet, to a degree, but his silence was made up of different ingredients. It wasn't something she could pinpoint and define, but it was there as surely as the invisible scent of a chemical leak.

Even Amaris had visible signs of change, though. Like Orion, his burns had healed and he had stopped needing bandages. He typically wore long-sleeved shirts, so the burns on his back were covered, but his hands were another story. The burns weren't noticeable unless you were up close, which no one really got to be anymore. She caught sight of them sometimes, though—discolored patches of skin in strange patterns and one or two pale, raised areas on his palms.

No one was exempt. Even Blake had been acting strange, jumping at small sounds and frowning at the ground as if lost in thought. Gina couldn't say what was bothering him, but she could venture forth a guess.

It had taken their group about one chaotic, frenzied hour to realize that the Nakawas had not appeared anywhere in any of the news stories. They'd even performed targeted searches for their names, gave it a few days, but still—nothing. The unspoken consensus was another coverup—Vaughn Nakawa had the clout and the connections to stop people from digging for their names.

Zahlia and Blake were able to keep in touch with their mother because of this. Nancy Nakawa was playing along, never once bringing up Pallet in any of her messages to her children. Some days Gina was jealous of Blake and Zahlia for this. Other days she wondered if they could somehow get Nancy to feed them badly-needed intel from the outside. Both feelings made her feel poorly about herself.

Across the room Jason's fight was wrapping up. She could tell from the rising tension in his shoulders and the short, jerky movements he made like he was cutting off a dozen different motions.

"Stop," he called, and Aerodactyl and Gyarados broke apart, panting and exhausted. Jason paused, but after that second of silence he walked to his team and conferred with them in softer tones. Maybe the others couldn't detect it, looking at Jason and only seeing the shadows of who he'd been before, in the long months after Orion left. She couldn't blame them—once burned, twice shy. She could see it, though, in the way he reached out and rubbed his hands along Gyarados' hard scales and gave Aerodactyl a thumbs up that better respected her need for personal space. He was trying.

Jason turned as if Gina's thoughts were a whisper in his ear. His eyes found hers and when she offered him a smile there was that pause. Then he returned it with a small quirk of his mouth. It was enough for her, for now.

"Alana's due anytime now," she said. Jason frowned for a second, needing a moment to comprehend her words over the pants and shuffles of his Pokémon. Then he nodded.

They didn't speak as they made their way through the winding corridors, heading for Alana's designated drop point. Her visits were clockwork, something to tell the passage of time by, but each arrival also deflated Gina's morale a bit more, too. They meant another two weeks had passed by.

Almost everyone else was gathered in the largest warehouse section of the plant by the time Gina and the others got there. Only Amaris was missing, which at one point would have been unusual, but was now run-of-the-mill. Gina tried hard not to let it bother her as they waited, none of them making eye contact or offering up anything new to say.

It was a relief when Alana and Tim teleported in and broke the tension, and what was more, they were not alone.

"Casey!" Kaylee exclaimed, her previously tense expression evaporating at the sight of the former Champ.

"The one and only," Casey replied, grinning easily around at the gathered group. Amaris was still not present, and the worry showed in Alana's brown eyes as she scanned their faces, deduced who was missing, and frowned, just a little. The lingering fear and apprehension left her shoulders, though, satisfied that she was not teleporting into any kind of unexpected danger. Tim branched off to stand near Kaylee, smiling in a subdued way at the glowing reactions their surprise tag-along was getting.

"What're you doing here?" Gina asked Casey, and knew he'd tease her for her wording the second it was out of her mouth. She grimaced pre-emptively as he put on an affronted face.

"Well!" he said with mock hurt. "That's a nice welcome, I can tell when I'm not wanted." He gave Gina a wink though and she smiled helplessly at him from between her fingers. "Nah, I get it. You're here for the goods." Gav, who had the case of the detox chemical set up for Alana on a rolling cart, moved it closer to her, a small smile on his own face. Casey presented the cart like a game show host and Alana wrinkled her nose at him.

"You still didn't answer us," Beth pointed out, grinning, and Casey tossed his hands up while Alana got to work.

"Fine, jeez, you guys are all business. I'm here partly as a security measure…" He exchanged a look with Alana before continuing. "We figure it might be safe to send her along with one of us from now on, just… in case." There was a heavy silence, but a few nods of assent. Coming to visit a ragtag team of fugitives at a remote location wasn't safe in the slightest, and it made sense for Alana to not make these trips alone. "Nick's busy so it'll mostly be me. But also…" He nodded to Tim. "Before I forget, I checked it out and it's still fine."

Tim, to whom this vague sentence clearly meant something, nodded. There were a few curious looks cast at him, but no one pressed him just yet. Alana would need their attention soon.

Gina hadn't missed the fact that Alana had come today, not only with Casey, but with a large rolling suitcase, a definite swap from the usual small metal briefcase she carried. No one pressed her for answers as she went through her usual motions with the rolling cart. Alana snapped blue latex gloves on, unclasped countless clear plastic cases full of syringes of various sizes and propped up little vials of red liquid in numbered stands. Gina smiled, as she normally did now, at the crimson fluid lined up and ready to distribute. Their enemies' Factor A chemical was blue, whereas their color of choice was red. That seemed fitting, somehow.

Kaylee was the one to break the curious silence at last. "What's all that?" she asked, nudging her foot in the direction of the large rolling case.

"Surprise goodies," Alana said, only deigning to offer Kaylee a mysterious smile. "For after all the boring stuff."

"That case better not open up and punch us in the face with a boxing glove," Blake offered dully. Casey just grinned at him.

"She packed it, not me, but you know me too well, apparently… you must be silenced." The scattered chuckles that passed along their numbers felt so good Gina wished Casey could stay with them permanently.

Alana had the injections lined up in an order that only made sense to her, and she called their team members forward seemingly at random.

Another addition to the process was the GIZMO, which was set up on the bottom shelf of the rolling cart. Though Alana was confident in her serum, she wanted checks and balances, and a means of measuring how each of their Pokémon reacted to the detoxification process. Step one was always a short interview with their team members by way of the GIZMO.

Jason's Venusaur was up first. He lumbered forward, settled down comfortably in the open space they'd cleared for the Pokémon, and moved his head obligingly left and right while Alana affixed the electrodes to his temples. There was the familiar crack, pop, and steady electrical hum from the speakers stuffed messily on the cart, and Alana turned the knobs and dials until the sound lessened somewhat.

"How are you feeling today?" she asked Venusaur, tucking some brown hair behind her ear and flipping to a clean page on her clipboard.

"Singularity pancake," Venusaur answered. There was a faltering, alarmed silence, and then the Grass-type gave an eyes-only Pokémon smile. "Just kidding. Good."

Alana let out a huff of air and playfully glared at Jason's starter, and Jason snorted into his hand like a simultaneously embarrassed and proud parent. Charizard huffed from behind Gina—she got the distinct impression he'd been planning on pranking them too, and had been beaten to the punch by his friend.

"At least it wasn't 'bungalow,'" Gina said, still having to fight back giggles about that word to this day.

Alana shook her head, amused. "No muscle cramps or numbness?"

"Nope. As always I am the paragon of physical fitness." There were more snorts, mostly from the gathered Pokémon around them, and Venusaur narrowed his eyes at them. "Hey," he said, in a bored, not-really-offended way, and demonstrated his Poké-stretching as if to prove his point.

Alana was checking boxes on her clipboard, fighting back a grin. "No sudden changes in mood?"

"I only have one mood, so no." With that Venusaur executed a languid yawn.

Alana's last question was more perfunctory than anything. "Anything else you want to bring to our attention?"

"That color looks good on you," Venusaur said to her. Alana, flustered, stammered out a thank you, but Venusaur followed up with, "Just kidding, I'm colorblind. Or am I?" He pretended to give it some thought, but Jason was already moving forward to remove the electrodes.

"I, uh, apologize for my starter's…" he didn't seem to have a word for it.

"You know he got it from you," Gina insisted. Amaris' Blastoise was supposed to go next, but as he wasn't there yet, they moved on to Victoria's Victreebel. Gina slipped away from the proceedings to go hunt Amaris down.

She had a feeling she knew where he was. It might have been difficult to pinpoint the location of a taciturn Amaris beforehand, but now he could be counted on to be in one place and one place only almost without fail. Gina let her feet carry her on autopilot down the winding, once-confusing corridors until they took her to the little group of tents they had erected to sleep in. There was no need for them to keep out the elements in this warehouse-like building, but they used them for privacy.

Gina walked over to Amaris' gray and blue tent and paused, always having to grapple with the urge to knock on something made of nylon and therefore impossible to rap her knuckles against. Instead she leaned over so her face was close to the corner she suspected his head was at. "Amaris?"

There was only silence for a time, and Gina grappled with herself internally before biting the bullet and unzipping the tent a fraction.

Amaris was there, as she knew he'd be, and Gina's heart constricted painfully at the sight.

When he was awake, Amaris was as he always was these days: tense, on edge, ready to retreat or answer curious looks with a sharp glare. Here, dead asleep, he looked terrible. He seemed simultaneously older and younger than he really was. They'd all gotten paler, staying indoors for the last few months, but his skin looked sicklier than the rest of theirs, and even though he spent virtually all his time catching naps, he still had dark circles under his eyes. Gina hesitated for a full minute, not wanting to wake him, partly because he looked like he needed the rest, and partly because she knew he'd startle and react badly no matter how gently she did it.

"Amaris," she said again, softly. He made no motion to have heard her, his days of being a light sleeper evidently behind him. Steeling herself for the unpleasantness to come, Gina reached out and shook his shoulder.

Amaris jerked awake and slapped her hand away, jolting into an impressive defensive position, and Gina jumped back a little. It took Amaris a faltering, electric few seconds to recognize her, and when he did the relief only flicked across his teal eyes for a second before he scowled.

Gina didn't stick around to hear what he had to say. "Alana's here," she said simply, getting up and turning away at once. She tried very hard not to feel like she was running away.

By the time she made her way back to the others, Charizard was hooked up to the GIZMO and wrapping up his interview. "You ask that every time. Are you expecting me to have something extra to tell you?" her starter asked Alana shrewdly.

"No," Alana promised. "It's just protocol."

"Hmm," Charizard said, sounding unconvinced. "I don't know. Sounds to me like you're not telling us something. Am I gonna sprout a second head? Because, in all seriousness, that would be sort of useful in combat." Venusaur snorted out a sound and Charizard answered with, "You shut up."

Gina jogged over to her starter to help unhook him from the GIZMO and ready it for the next Pokémon to get their injections. "Loser," she muttered to Charizard, and the last thing she heard the GIZMO say before it lost its connection with Charizard was, "I know you are, but what am I?"

Gina grinned and rolled her eyes, but each and every time they hooked Charizard up to the machine, and each and every time Alana injected him with their red chemical like she was now, Gina's stomach soured. Charmander had been so disobedient and wild when she'd first started training him. Would the detoxing from his Pokéball chemical somehow cause Charizard to revert to that behavior, or worse? Alana was 99% confident in her serum, but anything could go wrong in the scope of that remaining 1%.

"Amaris is coming," Gina added to Alana, softly. Alana just nodded, not meeting her eyes.

Alana breezed them through the rest of the interviews and detoxing as efficiently and quickly as she could, but the researcher was nothing if not thorough, and she took her time to plumb each anomaly, making sure that Kaylee's Arcanine was reporting soreness solely caused by training the day before, and Seaking was only feeling glum because of the lack of sunlight while they were trapped inside the Power Plant. Amaris somehow took twenty entire minutes to arrive from the time Gina woke him up, but no one said anything. No one ever really did about him anymore. Tim's enormous roster took forever, and by the time they were done with all of their Pokémon it was dark outside.

"Does anyone question it when you disappear all day?" Gina asked her as they wrapped up, putting the various items back where they belonged on the rolling cart.

"Nah," Alana said, giving Gina a grateful smile nevertheless. "We pre-arrange it and schedule everything very carefully to cover up where I'm really going. No one really comes by the Center much anymore to bug me for interviews, either. They sort of stopped that after the first few weeks."

"After it became clear you weren't going to rat us out, you mean?" Blake asked, giving Alana a small, teasing smile.

"… I just had the urge to say 'bros before hos,'" Alana said, looking disturbed. "And it doesn't even make sense in that context."

Casey pretended to wipe away a tear. "I'm rubbing off on her! They grow up so fast."

"Yeah, pretty sure I'm older than you," Alana shot back grinning at him. "Well, now that this is all done, I'm sure you're very curious about this." She nudged the larger, still unopened case with her foot and the others crowded around a bit closer, like weirdly haggard and tired kids at Christmas.

Alana unclasped the case and threw the lid back, and Gina got the best view of what was inside. She frowned, opened her mouth to ask a question, then closed it. Around her some of the others did the same.

"Are those…" Victoria began, trailing off, and Kaylee and Beth asked, "for us?" and "… Pokéballs?" in uncertain unison.

Alana wrinkled her nose at them. "Not quite the reaction I was looking for…" she said with faux woefulness.

The Pokéballs, if that's what they were… were kind of really fugly, in Gina's opinion. They were blocky and chunky, sort of spherical but kind of not, and each one had an enormous, bulky apparatus built into the aiming laser. The one pretty thing about them was their color, which was a softly-polished copper.

Orion put the pieces together first. "These… these are your clean ball prototypes?" he asked, sounding a lot younger due to the tentative excitement in his voice.

The others snapped to attention at that, looking eagerly to Alana, and she beamed at them all. "Orion wins the pony," she said.

"Full disclosure: there is no pony," Casey informed them.

"So many _lies_ , Alana!" Kaylee lamented, but she was grinning broadly and elbowed Tim, what looked kind of painfully, in the ribs.

"They don't get bigger or smaller the way Silph balls do," Alana said, sounding inanely apologetic for someone who, in Gina's opinion, had just performed a technological miracle. "So I tried to compromise and make them a bit smaller than an enlarged Silph ball, but bigger than the minimized size… still, they'll take some getting used to while you're wearing them…"

The others had surged in around the case, though, and Alana's disclaimers were drowned out by murmuring and jostling while everyone tried to get at least one to hold and play with.

The only person not clamoring for one of the balls was Amaris, and Gina hesitated for a second before grabbing a spare. She pulled back from the crowd as a snippet of Alana's next words reached her.

"They don't break, either," she said, answering a question posed to her by Gav. "I mean, Silph's balls break as a money-making tactic, I'm convinced of it. The company's had the tech to make much more durable balls for decades. But if the balls break every time you fail to catch a wild, that means you always need to go back and buy more, right?"

"Right," Gav agreed. He and Victoria were the only two not toying with the balls, instead holding them aloft and grilling Alana for details.

"With mine, you can chuck like… fifty at a Pokémon, and if it breaks out and runs away all fifty times… well. Well, you'll tear out your hair and scream first, but after that you can go gather up all fifty of these balls and try again."

Victoria arched a red eyebrow at Alana, calculating. "How would anyone make any money off this product?"

Alana gave her a frank, slightly surprised look. "I wouldn't foresee anyone making money off this. It would be a resource allotted to trainers, the same as the Dex. We don't charge for those, either."

Victoria nodded and said nothing, but Gina could tell that she was pleased with this answer. Gina tuned out the next question Tim asked Alana, turning instead to Amaris, who she had finally reached. He was standing with his arms crossed over his chest, watching Alana's conversation with Tim, but his expression was remote and pensive. When Gina thrust the ball at him he looked at it like he wasn't sure what to do with it, and Gina realized he was still struggling to emerge from an exhausted haze. After a faltering few seconds, he took the ball from her, and Gina retreated before he could feel obligated to speak.

"Alana…" Beth asked, picking up a card from inside the case. "Is this… is this card made up entirely of puns?"

Alana grinned, her cheeks pinking up a little. "Maybe? I don't know, I thought you might need a laugh. Or, uh, a half a dozen cringes."

Beth smiled broadly and started to read from the card, which Alana immediately protested, insisting she'd meant for it to be passed around and read silently. Beth would have no such thing. "'I wanted to _Raichu_ something inspiring," there were a few groans and laughs at that already, "'but all I could come up with were a bunch of Poképuns. How Onix-pected of me, right!?'" Blake interjected here with something about cruel and unusual PUNishment, but Beth raised her voice to drown him out. "'In all (or mostly) seriousness, I hope you find everything you're _Seaking_ , no matter how _Farfetch'D_ your goals.'" Kaylee elbowed Blake in the ribs, probably about the Farfetch'D part, and he rolled his eyes at her. "'You'll always have my support.'"

There were a few soft, "aww"s and some misty looks sent Alana's way. The poor researcher was bright red now, but smiled sheepishly at them. "One entire line without puns so you know I really mean it."

Beth finished up the card with the perfect salutation. "'Good _Eevee_ -ning, Alana and your friendly neighborhood Research Center.'"

"Well," Alana said, by way of explanation over the laughter of the others, "gotta end strong."

Gina snort-laughed and automatically looked to Jason, expecting to see him grinning her way and ready to tease her for it. Jason, however, was engrossed with the prototype ball, examining it with an intensity that told her he wasn't hearing a word of anything else around him. Gina acknowledged the small stab of melancholy that stole through her at this, but dismissed it and shifted her focus back to the others.

"Oh, so… I brought some photos, too," Alana said, recovering and pulling a small envelope from the pocket of her white coat. "Maria's baby." Beth crowded forward to look, the only one of their number who was over-the-top enthusiastic about seeing an infant, but Gina orbited in closer along with some of the others.

"So she's doing fine?" Tim asked, brow furrowed a little with lingering concern. "No complications?" Maria had given birth approximately two hours after being evacuated from Pallet in the heart of the siege. Her water had broken while she was running from the Research Center.

"No complications," Alana reported happily. "They're both doing great."

While Alana answered questions about the outside world to anyone who wanted to know more, Gina drifted away from the huddle and watched from the outside, wrapped up in too many conflicting emotions to sort them all out. Casey turned up by her shoulder and she glanced up at him, offering him a tiny smile.

"Can't wait till I can detox my team, too," Casey said, looking longingly at the crimson streaks of liquid still clinging to the trashed glass syringes Alana had packed up in a clear biohazard case. "Someday, when this is all over."

Gina had forgotten for a minute why Casey couldn't start now, and had already opened her mouth to ask when she remembered. It would be a little obvious if someone out in the public eye—someone like Casey—started roaming around either with his full team out all the time, or with them shut away in Alana's very conspicuous new Pokéballs. Casey didn't have a choice but to continue mainstreaming, for now, and neither did Nick.

Tim had decided to detox with them, save for a core group of six he'd keep for public appearances. It was a choice that had taken some debate for the rest of the group to agree with. As hard a pill as it was to swallow, Tim had essentially agreed to put away his public life and other pursuits in favor of helping them as full-time as was possible—just as soon as the Champ title was officially passed to Nick. As such, it only made sense for him to take this step alongside them. Besides, as Alana had pointed out, she was reasonably sure her new balls would completely thwart the Returner tech's attempts to force-return their Pokémon into their balls and trap them there. The Returner had been created based off of Silph tech, and to hear it said, Alana's balls were entirely incompatible with the major corporation's design. Tim was now as safe as they were—and in as much danger, too.

There were times Gina wanted to apologize to him, or Casey or Nick, or Alana, or the entirety of Pallet Town, for this.

They sowed danger wherever they went these days, and it was hard not to dwell on those players who were tangled up, directly or indirectly, in their affairs, now. The PLF had been quiet, which was unsurprising. They had to know the Aerodactyl that some people said they'd seen soaring, briefly, above the Pallet siege had come from their fossil. Every newspaper outlet had assumed the prehistoric Pokémon had belonged to "the enemy," whoever that was, but the end result was the same. Very few trainers had one of these creatures, and the databases of those who were known to possess one were being cross-examined closely now.

James Dasten, therefore, was a suspect. After everything he'd done for them, he would be interrogated and probably had a number of warrants out on him now. No one knew if he was actively in hiding or was facing the inquiries head-on. It was just another life they'd managed to ruin.

There were precious few things that gave Gina hope and kept her spirits up, and one of those things was Alan Zachariah's untraceable, off-the-grid cellphone. Wilbur's contact used this device to pass information to the aging police chief and coordinate Alana's hops into the Power Plant.

He was perfectly situated already, as he was still stationed at Pallet as a League representative post-disaster.

It really was one of the only upsides to their current situation, though. Alana's visits, the balls she'd just bestowed upon them, the pun card and the photos of Maria and her baby were tiny breaths of fresh air, but their lives went right back to stifling and suffocating as soon as these moments passed.

Zahlia and Orion were still at a very obvious, painful impasse, as they had been since Zeke's death. Nathan Fremont would need another boost of Factor A in a month or less. They were on the run like they'd never been before, and Gina hadn't properly seen the sun in weeks. She wasn't sure what they'd do without Casey bringing them dumb human interest stories every so often. He was the one able to pop in to visit them the most, but that was no surprise. It was no secret that he was the Champ least wrapped up in the tangled League web.

Speaking of Casey—Alana and he were packing up to go. Gina fought off the sinking sensation of disappointment at the sight of Alana wheeling her now-empty rolling case back to the drop point.

"Message Zachariah if you need me," she said, which was her sign-off to them almost always.

"Or me," Casey said, boastfully. "Because, let's face it, you always need me." With that, and a cheeky wink at their gathered numbers, Alana and Casey teleported away.

The silence in their wake was a little less painful this time, though; they'd left behind cool toys, after all. It seemed the group was gearing up to vanish into their own cliques and solo shows, toying with their new Pokéballs, but Tim cleared his throat before they could disperse.

"So," he said, with the air of someone expecting to meet opposition and bracing himself for it, "I have a proposition." Gina could actually feel the apprehension that passed like a palpable thing between members of their group, but Tim barreled on. "I've had Casey checking up frequently on a safe house in Pewter, and I think it's about time we seriously consider relocating there." There was a ripple of half-formed questions, but Tim continued his explanation. "It's my mom's place. Well—her second place. The house I grew up in is closer to the Gym district, but this house is much farther north. I saved up and got it for her so she could offer room and board to wayward trainer kids, but it's not been used in ages. And it's been unfalteringly secure for the past two months."

There was a small pause, and Gav spoke up when it became clear Tim was done. "… As much as we appreciate that," he began, and Gina could recognize the "dear John" letter in his tone, "the risk is still too great to make any moves from where we are right now."

"I… disagree," Tim said, sounding like he was trying very hard to word it in such a way that wouldn't offend Gav. "I think staying in one spot for a long period of time, like we're doing now, is just going to increase the chances that we'll get discovered."

"We could at least check it out," Kaylee suggested, trying not to look dubiously hopeful and failing.

"Maybe," Beth said, gnawing her lip, but she looked doubtful.

"Well, of course, sure," Tim said, back-tracking a little bit. "I don't expect you to just, jump up and go, 'yeah, sure!' just like that or anything."

"Funny," Amaris said, speaking up for the first time in what was honestly probably weeks. "Because that's exactly what it sounds like to me."

The group fell silent. Heads turned to Amaris, then back to Tim, and while a few people looked like they wanted to interject and intervene, no one seemed to know what to say.

"Like I said," Tim repeated, obviously striving very hard for patience, "I get that you're nervous, but I really think this is something we should consider. Staying put—"

"I like how you try to speak with any authority about what it's like to be on the run with this group," Amaris commented, cutting off the rest of Tim's sentence with a cold, almost bored tone. "Offer up suggestions all you like, but don't imagine for even a second that you know what's best."

"He didn't say that even _once_ ," Kaylee finally cut in, apparently unable to resist any longer.

A muscle in Tim's jaw worked, and Gina wondered how hard he was fighting to reign in what she knew to be a short temper. Before things could come to a head, however, Gav finally mediated. "It's not a bad idea. And I agree, we should look into it. At some point. Because, well. Staying in the Power Plant forever is… kind of not an option." He'd meant it to be a joke, but the humor was lost between Kaylee's crackling resentment, Amaris' continual aloof derision, and the palpable anger rolling off Tim.

Gina tried, vaguely, to hold on to the memory of Beth reading out the puns on Alana's card, but already those happy feelings were fading. At least it seemed as if Gav's statement had put an end to the discussion before things could get worse, but then Jason spoke up in a hollow voice and bulldozed everything.

"Amaris is right. If this house is connected at all to Tim's mom, we don't go there. We have a fucked up history with 'safe' houses." And, before anyone could respond, he turned and walked away, heading for a seemingly random corridor.

Gina watched him go, but turned to stare back at Amaris, at a complete loss. She saw it, but wondered if she was the only one who noticed it for what it was. He closed his eyes, for just a moment, and in that snapshot of an image she could tell he regretted what he'd done.

Gina knew there would probably be some kind of fallout here, but suddenly, she didn't want to be there to see it. She was sick to death of it, one hundred and fifty percent over it, and without knowing she was going to do it, she started off after Jason. He was already out of sight, and it took Gina a few minutes to figure out where he'd gone. He wasn't in his usual training haunts, which had been her first guess, and by the time she thought to check the corridor which contained their tents, he was seated inside his with the nylon door flap half-closed.

Gina hesitated by his tent the way she'd paused by Amaris', but in the end she decided to approach. She was certain Jason had heard her coming, but when she crouched down by the opening he jumped a little and stowed something small and black out of sight. With a jolt of constricted pain in her chest, Gina realized what it was. For a frozen moment neither of them spoke.

Jason seemed to realize that she'd figured out what he was looking at. He seemed to deflate, and reached up to scrub one hand through his disheveled hair. "It's a touchy subject," he said, as if he had to make excuses to her. "Well, no shit, everything's a touchy subject with me nowadays, isn't it?" Gina thought this was an accurate description, but kept quiet. Jason sucked in a fortifying breath, made like he was going to say something else, then shook his head. He turned his back to her and put the item he'd been looking at—Edith's black book of phone contacts—away properly.

"I guess I just haven't quite… accepted the fact that I'm really never going to see her again."

The words hurt on virtually every level Gina could feel pain. She closed her eyes for a second and fought off a hot prickle behind her eyes, thanking her stars that Jason was still not facing her. She'd managed to compose herself by the time he turned back her way.

"She got rid of her phone," Gina started, haltingly. "I mean when she… when she left Pallet. And she left everything behind." She nodded to the place where Jason had just hidden her black book away. "Even if she wants to talk to us, maybe she just can't figure out how."

Even to her own ears the hope in her voice rang false. She wasn't sure why she wanted to try to convince Jason, and herself, that they might be wrong, but before she could give it any thought, Jason's last words interrupted her.

"No. She's not coming back."

He sounded so final, his voice taking on that awful, hollow tone it had had while they discussed the possibility of Tim's safe house, and Gina reached out to him automatically. He looked up at her just as she reached for his shoulder, and when their gazes locked Gina's hand changed its mind. Instead of resting a light and comforting weight on his shoulder in a friendly gesture she'd done a hundred times, her fingers nested gently into the messy hair at Jason's temple, her hand framing the side of his face.

Gina's lashes fluttered with a surprised embarrassment and her over-the-top, tender gesture, but when she tried to pull back and retreat Jason's hand shot up to trap hers where it was. A jolt of alarm coursed through Gina's body at the contact, and when Jason's eyes slipped shut she allowed herself to stare at him for a long, unbroken moment. Her heart was thundering against her ribs.

 _Go_ , a voice inside told her. _Go, get out of here before you do something you'll both regret.  
_  
It was as if Jason could read her mind. No sooner had she thought about how to escape than he spoke up again, his voice soft and imploring.

"Gina. Wait."

"I have to—" she started, but of course it was ridiculous. What did she have to go do? Nothing. There was nothing any of them had to do here, no appointments to keep, nowhere to hide. She'd been dreaming about a moment like this for over a year, and now that it was happening all she felt was trapped.

If only she could look away. His eyes were arresting, the color of their blue somehow less like the sunny skies of the early days of their Master Journeys together. It was more like the crackling cyan of a gas flame.

Gina opened her mouth to finish her excuse, to make up some reason, any reason that she had to leave, and couldn't find her voice.

"Gina," Jason said again. He moved forward, and that, more than anything, startled her out of her freeze reaction.

"I've got to…" she started again, and was still unable to finish the sentence. She managed to get to her feet, though. Jason didn't pull her hand back, didn't rise to join her, didn't say anything, didn't give chase. Gina was able to take a few steps back, turn around, and force herself to walk away—but she wasn't able to look him in the eyes as she did so.

 _Author's Note: I ran into some pretty serious pacing problems and did everything I could in my outline to avoid them… but they were unavoidable. As a result Azure will be my longest arc by far. Apologies! Try to bear with me. More detailed notes and review replies are in my profile!_


	2. What Do You Do :Jason:

Pokémon Azure

Chapter 2: What Do You Do

(Jason Fremont)

"I said get back!" Jason barked, his already short temper burned down to the wick. "What don't you understand?" Even Golduck, who should have been leery of the type disadvantage, only managed to pull a withering look of frustration before he widened his stance and hunkered down, ready to deliver Jason's next command.

The smudge-nosed Voltorb was back. Jason couldn't understand it. He'd known Pokémon could be territorial, but this was ridiculous. For a second he'd toyed with the idea that there was an Aggro Device hidden somewhere around the Power Plant that made the young Electric-type so aggressive, but he quickly dismissed that idea. The other wilds had long since learned to give their group a wide berth. It was only this one that kept coming back for more.

The Voltorb dropped low again, as it usually did, and swayed back and forth like an Arbok getting ready to strike. Jason let out an aggrieved, loud sigh and ended it with an order of "Tail Whip!" to Golduck. He couldn't bring himself to unleash something even middle-of-the-road powerful like Confusion at the poor thing. It clearly had delusions of grandeur, and while he wanted it to bug off, he didn't want his attacks to stray into the territory of overkill.

Golduck shot forward into a tight somersault spin, his long blue tail lashing across the front of the Voltorb's body/face. It gave a surprised, jolting zap sound and backed off several feet, but it wasn't quite done yet.

In a way Jason was, perversely, a little happy for the distraction, as infuriating as this random wild was. It gave him something else to think about; anything else was better than dwelling on last night.

"Left!" he called to Golduck, just in time. The Voltorb released a fairly impressive Thundershock for a low-levelled creature, and Golduck was able to avoid the attack only by a hair.

Jason had eventually been able to fight off the automatic grimace that crossed his face every time he was able to predict, with eerie accuracy, the onset of an Electric-type move, but it was a close thing. He didn't think he'd ever get used to it, but at least he could use it to his advantage.

Golduck continued to trade blows with the Voltorb, and even though it was the last thing Jason wanted, his thoughts automatically started to shift. Any time he had a spare moment that wasn't filled with movement or action, Gina's face blossomed in his mind. The first few times this had happened he'd physically turned his head to the left or right, as if doing so would allow him to look away from an image inside his mind. Only after the first several hours of mortification following their strange near-miss was he able to deal with his feelings head-on.

What had he meant to do? Even he didn't know. Not for the first time and not for the last, Jason cursed his own unpredictable spontaneity. In the moment it had made so much sense. Now that the moment was gone he couldn't think where his head had been. Thank God Gina had bailed, though a large part of him was sorely disappointed that she had. What had he expected? For her to fall into his arms because he'd thrown a poisoned barb into a group discussion yet again and had gone off to sulk over his ex-fiancée's personal belongings? He was a mess more often than he wasn't a mess, and he thought longingly back to the days before the Pallet siege. While he had been getting Aerodactyl to warm up to him, recovering from his injury and watching the research staff work he had started to feel almost normal.

Golduck finally succeeded in chasing the Voltorb away, though he had to actually run after it to do so. Jason's Pokémon vanished momentarily down a corridor that branched off to the right. There were a few lingering, jittery electric sounds, silence, and then Golduck came sprinting back.

"You didn't pack its shoes with cement and drop it into a lake, did you?" Jason joked in a deadpan voice as Golduck drew near. Golduck paused and gave him a very concerned look, and Jason rolled his eyes. "I'm joking. I know Voltorb doesn't have shoes. Or feet. And there's no lake. Seriously…"

That was one of the cooler things about Alana's bi-monthly visits to detox their teams. Jason got a regular reel of insight into his team's personalities, speech styles and opinions, short though those windows were. Golduck was serious and literal, and sarcasm and turns of phrase often went right over his head. In the days before the GIZMO Jason had often though the blank stare his Water-type would give him was the result of a lingering headache, but now he knew better.

Jason gave his duck a small smile, then pulled his Dex out of his pocket to check the time. It was off, but it was a habit he hadn't been able to kick yet. Jason huffed out a soft laugh, staring down at his own reflection in the black screen. Alana had smuggled them a portable generator, an ironic need for a group of renegades who lived in a power plant, but the fact remained that none of them were confident enough to rewire the hundreds of thousands of volts of electricity in the walls to make it safe to charge their devices. They took it in turns to juice up their phones, Dexes, PDAs and other assorted pieces of tech, and Jason's was only at 30%. Even when it was nearing full power he kept it off for the sheer fact that there was no reason to keep it on. Everyone he wanted to contact was under this roof with him, and if Alana needed them she would send out a group text to everyone's phone using Alan Zachariah's secure line. They took it in shifts to keep at least one phone on so her messages could reach them.

Jason watched as the smile slipped off his face to be replaced with a haggard, worn expression he still couldn't reconcile as being his own. For a second he was perfectly torn between two modes of action, but in the end he tipped himself over one way and powered on his device. While it took the groaning half a minute to wake up and figure out what was going on, Jason realized he had to amend his previous statement.

Everybody he _needed_ to talk to was under this roof with him, or accessible via Alan Zachariah's secure phone line—but there was one person he wanted to talk to that he couldn't. They'd blocked their parents' assorted numbers long ago, but it hadn't taken long for family members to reach out to their children from other phones. Calls flooded in from neighbors' landlines and payphones in Centers. Now, more often than not, everyone kept their phones on silent or off. Jason's Dex finished its long boot-up process and he scrolled through his now-short list of saved files. He'd offloaded almost everything onto Gav's terabyte drive, hoping that the lack of clutter would make his Dex run faster. No such luck.

The video file he wanted was the third item on his list, and since he had saved it directly from the link he'd covertly sent himself from Gav's PDA, the file name was a jumbled mass of alphanumeric nonsense. It was probably better that way. Jason didn't know what he would have named the file otherwise. "Shit that breaks my heart that I should delete?"

Jason clicked "play."

Two austere but slightly aging news anchors sat side-by-side for that faltering, awkward second of silence before they got the "OK" sign to start talking. Then their blank faces morphed into expressions of grim determination. The story they were about to report on would not be a fluffy human interest piece.

"KITV-7 comes to you with breaking news on the attack on Pallet," the anchorwoman on the left said, her face stern and the faint wrinkles around her eyes standing out in harsh contrast. Jason always figured they'd replace her soon with a fresher, younger face. "Linda Fremont, ex-wife of Vermillion Gym Leader Nathan Fremont and mother of two of the Pallet renegades, Jason and Orion Fremont, has finally given a statement to KITV-7 reporters. Let's take a look."

Jason thought "given a statement" was a liberal term for the clip that came next. A respectable gaggle of pushy reporters had his harried mother cornered outside the steel and glass office building where she worked and were shoving microphones and recording devices in her face. Even pale, exhausted, thinner than he remembered, and surrounded by a swarm of nosy paparazzi, Jason's mother was fierce and terrifying. Her hair was disheveled and she wasn't wearing makeup, but her blue eyes blazed as she fixed a random camera in the bunch with a cold, hard stare.

"Alright, you," a shrill bleep blotted out her word, but Jason could read her lips, "buzzards, you want a statement? You want me to _say_ something for you?" Her voice was so snide on the last part, and Jason had never heard her slip up and swear like that in public. "If anyone goes _near_ my children they'll be tied up in legal repercussions so long and protracted they'll never see another minute's peace. I don't care if they're of age, no one has any proof they were anything but _heroes_ to Pallet." Jason could hear snips of follow-up questions, words like, _fleeing the scene_ and _key witnesses._ His mother ignored them all and snapped her eyes back to the camera. To Jason, it looked as if she was seeing straight across the hundreds of miles between Saffron and here, looking straight at him. "Jason, Orion. You come and find me. You hear me? You come and find me and we'll get through this." Her voice cracked and broke on the last part, and she turned and vanished through the double doors. A stressed-out security guard Jason didn't recognize moved to barricade the doors and keep the press out. He wondered vaguely what happened to Wally, the rotund and aging guard he remembered from his youth.

Jason shut off his Dex.

Golduck was watching him with some measure of wariness, his crimson eyes sizing Jason up far better than he wanted. "What?" he asked his Pokémon, with no real feeling behind it.

"Your team always knows when something's wrong."

Jason didn't jump, and was proud of himself for not doing so. Still, a curl of brilliant frustration scored through his stomach as he recognized the voice. Already not disposed to take kindly to people who snuck up on him, Jason was even less forgiving when the person in question was Nathan Fremont.

Not feeling like speaking, Jason remained quiet, assuming his father had some kind of monologue prepared. When Fremont didn't say anything Jason finally turned to face him. "Yes?" he asked, trying to keep the edge out of his voice and failing miserably.

Fremont didn't pursue his earlier topic, opting instead to change the subject. "Little risky, training your Water-type in a place like this, isn't it?"

Jason huffed out a humorless laugh. "Golduck can handle anything this place has to throw at us, and then some," he said, feeling like he had to defend the strength of his team, and also feeling ashamed for that knee-jerk reaction. He didn't have anything to prove to his father.

Fremont was quiet for a bit. "I don't doubt that," he finally said, "but even if your Golduck _was_ under-leveled, I'd still approve of pitting him against a building rife with nothing but type disadvantage. Then he knows what the very worst can be."

Jason was tempted, for a second, to tell his father about how he had defeated Avery in Cinnabar with Ivysaur and Ivysaur alone, in a gritty, high-paced, six-on-one battle, but didn't say anything. Again, he had to tell himself he had nothing to prove to his father. There was no reason to long for his approval or the knowledge that he'd made him proud.

Jason had been silent while he was grappling with himself internally, and Fremont sighed. "Okay," he said, with the tone of someone cutting through the bullshit, "I get that you and I aren't going to be building a bridge into our future together, but do you want a training partner for tonight?"

Jason stared at his father, trying to break him down into lines of data he could analyze, but he'd never been good at that. For the third time he had to tell himself that he shouldn't want anything from this man who had abandoned him and his mother, but he couldn't deny that the idea of having a training partner who wouldn't shoot him miserable, worried looks every five seconds was tempting.

Fremont was quiet and let his son vacillate. When Jason finally tossed up half a testy shrug, Fremont just nodded and backed the few steps away to give their arena some space. Jason was suddenly facing a battle where he'd have to back up his boast about Golduck, or else return his Water-type and swap him with something that could handle his father's roster better. Stubbornness flared in his chest and he nodded to Golduck, who, for his part, didn't appear nervous. Jason wasn't sure if it was because he looked forward to the challenge, or because he trusted his trainer.

The image of Venusaur's multicolor, blotchy flower, half magenta, half deepest crimson, curled to life in Jason's mind. He shook it off.

His father's choice was Electabuzz. He certainly wasn't pulling any punches, Jason noted, and nodded to his Water-type. "I'm not gonna shout a bunch of orders at you, buddy," Jason said to his duck. "You know what to do. Just listen for when I tell you to dodge, okay?" Golduck nodded to show he'd understood, while Fremont hadn't given a single directive to his Pokémon.

Neither trainer gave a command. The creatures before them inherently knew that it was time to start and leapt into action immediately. Golduck kept his distance, emitting the invisible yet warbling rapid pulses of Confusion. Electabuzz crossed his beefy forearms over his face and crouched down to endure it. Jason waited for a twinge of premonition that would precede a powerful electric strike, but didn't feel anything. He turned out to be correct, for a second later Electabuzz shot forward for a Quick Attack that Golduck had to slide aside to avoid. Golduck turned the motion into a Tail Whip, which caused Electabuzz to rear back to avoid it. In that moment of unsure footing, Golduck hit it across the belly with Scratch.

Then Jason felt it. "Right!" he called.

Golduck didn't hesitate before rolling to the right. A second later a bolt of energy charred the ground where he had stood.

Jason couldn't help it. His first reaction was to glance up at his father to see if he had noticed. Fremont, for his part, wasn't looking at Jason, instead watching the battle. Jason tried to clamp down on the disappointment before it bloomed inside him, but it was no good.

Golduck issued forth Water Gun, which wasn't a powerful move against an Electric-type, but still had its uses. Electabuzz skidded on slightly murky water that had picked up years of dust, and instead reared back his right fist. His whole arm was crackling with audible, snapping energy.

 _Thunder Punch,_ Jason realized, but he didn't have to shout a warning to Golduck for this. It was obvious where the strike would come from.

Golduck, so nimble on his feet, somersaulted back, kept his footing on the landing even though their arena was mostly one giant puddle now, and opened his bill to blast Electabuzz with another, more concentrated blast of Confusion. Electabuzz fell flat to avoid it, the rush of psychic energy grazing his yellow belly, but not doing much damage.

Fremont and Jason had begun to subconsciously roam around the battlefield, both of them moving steadily to the right so they were circling their Pokémon like sharks. The battle had not stayed perfectly in the center of the area they'd set up for it, as battles seldom did, and the trainers found themselves having to adjust accordingly. A part of Jason hated himself for doing it, but he kept casting involuntary little glances at his father, trying to read anything off his face—some kind of strategy, pleasure or displeasure at how the battle was going, anything. He got nothing except that fact that his father was looking gaunt again. He was in need of Factor A.

Electabuzz wound up for another Thunder Punch, using his left arm this time, and Jason only had time to inwardly remark that his father's Pokémon was ambidextrous when a surge of alarm caused him to shout, "Left!"

It made no sense, as he hadn't felt the need to warn Golduck about the last Thunder Punch, but then a second bolt of lightning scored down from the ceiling, larger and more devastating than the first. It was probably Thunder as opposed to Thundershock, Jason thought, heart hammering. Golduck barely dodged in time.

This time when he glanced at his father, Fremont was staring back at him. His eyes were cold and calculating, though Jason wasn't sure what he'd expected. His father didn't do smiles, so it would have been naive to expect one. Their Pokémon squared off again, crouched and ready, but waiting for orders this time. They both seemed to sense there was a pause in the battle.

"Hold off," Fremont said to Electabuzz, and Jason slapped his thigh for Golduck to come back to his side.

Fremont stared at his son for a long, unbroken moment—so long, in fact, that Jason was on the verge of demanding he take a picture so it would last longer. Then he finally said, "How long have you been able to do that?"

Jason could have played dumb, but he knew it was no good. He gave his second, testy shrug of the day and averted his eyes. "Didn't really, uh, make it a practice to fight Electric trainers," he admitted. "Only really noticed it when I was challenging Terry."

If Fremont put the pieces together about why Jason spent most of his life avoiding Electric trainers, he didn't say anything. "It's funny," Fremont said, and Jason could tell that whatever he was going to say next wouldn't be funny at all. "I always tested Orion to see if he had that instinct. Tested him when we lived together in Vermillion, tested him again when all this shit went down and we were on the run. He just doesn't have the knack for it."

"Yeah, well," Jason said, feeling a confusing blend of protective defensiveness for his brother and a selfish, misplaced pride. "Orion's a Normal-type trainer. That's what he wants. You're gonna have to get used to it."

Fremont laughed mirthlessly. "Who says I'm not used to it? Just stating facts. You've got the knack and he doesn't. Shame you won't even add that Voltorb to your roster."

Jason stared at his father. "That Voltorb hates me," he said bluntly. "If you hadn't noticed."

Jason had to take it back. His father did smile on occasion, but it never reached his eyes. "It likes you. Or at least finds you interesting. Otherwise it wouldn't keep coming back."

Jason thought, privately, that this was just about the stupidest thing he'd ever heard, but kept his opinion to himself. He tried to imagine other trainers trying to take his father's backwards advice, and pictured a slew of Initiates with missing limbs and charred faces lining up at the hospital because they had tried to cuddle up to savage wilds.

"Doesn't matter," Jason said. "We're not using Silph balls anymore, so I can't catch it even if I wanted to."

His father shrugged one shoulder. "No one says you've got to use a Silph ball. The researcher girl gave you those new ones, didn't she? You realize people trained Pokémon before Silph existed."

"I know that," Jason shot back, trying not to sound as snappish as he felt. "Lance caught his dragons without Pokéballs, but I'm not Lance."

"No, you're not," his father said, and Jason felt a stab of annoyance. He knew he would never be in the same league as the Dragonmaster, but that didn't mean he wanted his father of all people agreeing with that assessment.

"Doesn't mean you can't do it the old-fashioned way," Fremont continued. "I could give you some pointers, but I get the feeling you'd want to do it on your own."

"Who says I even want to do it in the first place?" Jason said on a haggard sigh.

Fremont put his hands up in the classic "don't shoot" gesture. "Just a suggestion."

 _Maybe I don't want your suggestions,_ Jason thought acidly. _Maybe I want you to just fuck off and leave me alone like you've done my whole life._

"I got my Electabuzz that way," Fremont said, almost as an afterthought.

Jason didn't mean to, but he did a double-take. "What?"

"I mean, obviously, once I'd established that he wanted to come with me, he had to be transferred into a Pokéball, but I didn't catch him the normal way."

At Jason's blank look, Fremont elaborated. "The normal way—battle, weaken, status effect. Chuck a ball, cross your fingers and hope it stays in." Jason wasn't sure if he continued talking just because he wanted to share, or if, somehow, the man who had let him grow up without a father could still tell his son was interested. "It was slow-going," he explained. "Honestly don't know what made me want to try it Lance's way instead of the easy way." He smirked. "Maybe I thought it would get me in good with the Four. I was still trying to make a name for myself at that point." Fremont dismissed that thread of the conversation and went on. "It was a lot of what I see between you and that Voltorb, now. It's a game of chess. Electabuzz actually found the spars against my team fun. I never used the full power of my roster against him, because I didn't want to damage him or scare him off for good." The unspoken message there was, _like you're doing with that Voltorb._ "After a time, I'd pull back from the fight, wait just a bit to make sure he wasn't gonna rush in again, then make like I was gonna walk away. I'd check over my shoulder, and sure enough, he'd be there watching us go, looking kind of glum every time. After enough of this I started making a gesture like I was offering for him to follow. Didn't do it right away, but in time, he did. Past that point it was 'storming and norming.'" Fremont snorted at that term, and Jason thought he knew why. He'd heard his mother use it on multiple occasions when her work team gained a new face. It was a little surprising that his father still used this turn of phrase after all these years. "If you get to that point, where it's following you, and you don't mind that it's following you, I can tell you what I did next."

Jason hadn't said a word during his father's explanation and now felt it would be appropriate to speak up, but he was beginning to understand that he was struck mute around Fremont more often than not.

"What's your training regime usually like with your team?" Fremont asked, jarring Jason with another subject change.

Jason glanced at him as if looking for a carefully concealed trap door and weighed his words before answering. "Some of what you just saw," he started, slowly. "I'll let out two or more of my team, have them spar. I don't really get the point of shouting orders at them anymore. That kind of stuff is useful for Gym battles and official trainer fights, but what we're training for isn't going to look like that."

"I agree," his father said.

"Beyond that," Jason continued, tossing up a shrug and looking away, "I do a lot of physical training with them too. Orion and Tim have been at it for longer than me, but I've still got a pretty good regime worked out. Even though Alana's new Pokéballs are supposed to be immune to the Returner device, I don't want to be defenseless if my team's separated from me some other way."

"I agree again," Fremont said. Jason waited for that traitorous pang of pleasure at having his father approve of his methods, but it did not come. "So," Fremont said, and something about the way he inflected that first word made Jason look over to him. Sure enough, Fremont was shrugging out of his heavy black rain coat and let it crumple to the ground. "Show me what you got."

Jason stared at him, blank-faced. "You've got to be kidding me."

Fremont arched an eyebrow. "Do I look like I'm kidding?"

"You're all…" Jason said, gesturing to him. A part of him didn't want to offend, but there wasn't really a nice way to say _rail thin, shaky, strung-out and fragile._

Fremont snorted and rolled his eyes. "Yes, I've lost muscle mass," he said, the words dripping with sarcasm. "That doesn't mean I'm going to shatter into a million pieces if you hit me wrong. Weren't you just saying we have to be capable of fighting without our Pokémon?" Jason's hesitation must have still shown, because Fremont sighed heavily. "No one's gonna force you," he said. "But I thought you'd appreciate the chance to spar with someone who won't be pulling punches or acting weird."

Jason thought he understood what he meant by that. Orion was, for the most part, his spar partner, but Orion had been turning him down lately. Kaylee and Tim were options, but he didn't know Tim well, and Kaylee, like many of the others, was still treating him differently. His father was not an ideal partner in any way, but at least he was willing.

Feeling that he would come to regret this decision, Jason tossed up his third messy shrug worthy of a sullen child and moved to square off against his father. An air of unreality washed over him, and Jason felt for a moment as if he was watching himself from a great distance. He sure hadn't ever pictured himself doing something like this.

Fremont moved closer until they were only about a foot and a half apart. "So," he said. "If I come at you like this, what do you do?" He extended his arm in a slow-motion, straightforward jab. Jason blocked it with a swipe of his forearm. Fremont nodded.

"Good, pretty basic stuff. What about this?" he said, going for a lower punch to the gut. Jason pivoted his body to the side and swiped out with his arm again. Fremont nodded once more.

His father's face took on a sullen expression, however. Jason didn't know why until he spoke. "And how does that move change when your opponent has a knife?" Fremont asked, striving for indifference and not quite managing it.

Unbidden, the image of Orion's scattered scars flashed across Jason's mind. "It doesn't change," he answered. "In a perfect world, I guess, there'd be a magical block I could use that would stop me from getting cut at all, but…" He trailed off.

"But?" Fremont prompted.

Jason had somehow expected him to finish his sentence for him. "But, first rule of knife fights is 'be prepared to get cut,'" Jason finished, a little lamely, not feeling anywhere near qualified to speak on this subject. He'd never been in a knife fight.

Fremont just nodded. That air of prickly discomfort dissipated a little, and they went back to trading blows. For a time it was the same style: "What do you do if I do this?" with Jason mutely showing him the counterstrike. After a time, they got quicker and quicker, Fremont returning to some of the strikes he'd tried on Jason earlier, seemingly not to trip him up, but to allow more practice time for each move. Their movements sped until there weren't any pauses between the strikes anymore. Fremont stopped introducing new moves to block, and instead they flew through the ones they had already covered. Jason ducked a wide haymaker, Fremont x-blocked Jason's returning straight punch to his stomach.

"Move your feet!" Fremont barked, tossing a right hook at Jason that he almost didn't block in time. Thrown off by the words, Jason shuffled backward, but Fremont shook his head minutely. "Each punch—you toss—" he said, punctuating his words around each jab, "should come—with—" He stepped back, giving the fight just a little breathing room, and Jason knew it was to allow him to look at his feet. "A step…" Fremont said, stepping forward just a little with a punch Jason knew wasn't meant to land. "Or a pivot." He demonstrated with a twist of his heel and a low left hook that also didn't connect. "Try it," he said, and Jason flew back into the fight.

It was uncomfortable and awkward. Jason wanted to be stable on his feet, an immovable object, but he understood now that his father's advice had merit. He needed to be more mobile, able to quickly dip and dodge, move from side to side. What was more, the tiny step or pivot, a twist of his hips here, a swivel of his shoulders there, offered more power to his hits. Soon Fremont was on the defensive.

His father cracked a smile, just once, when Jason's hook came too quick and he wasn't able to shoulder off the blow. It was the first time one of their hits had landed instead of being blocked, and Jason faltered.

"Keep going!" Fremont shouted, and Jason was snapped back into action. He hadn't realized it, but Golduck and Electabuzz had begun fighting alongside them as well. The only reason he noticed was due to a flash of gold and blue in his peripheral vision. Their Pokémon were going through hand-to-hand combat training as well, though their fight was a lot quicker and no one was pulling punches.

When Fremont took a sharp three steps back from the fight, Jason thought for a wild second that he was hurt. He dropped his guard, but at the sharp look his father gave him, brought it back up. "And what do you do," Fremont asked, breathing hard, "if I tackle you around the legs?"

Jason paused. His spar sessions with the few others that were willing had never covered something like this. They only really fought with both parties upright, a foot apart, and the fanciest it got was a tossed knee here or there. When Jason didn't answer, Fremont lowered his chin, and Jason took that as his split second of warning. Then his father charged.

They were close enough that Jason only had time to try to land an elbow strike to the top of his father's bowed head, but they collided before he could. Jason's entire body stiffened and he automatically grabbed onto his father's back as his center of gravity shifted violently. Jason expected to topple straight back and feel his head collide with the cement floor, but Fremont didn't let him fall.

"From here," he said, releasing Jason's legs. "I'd get you down, you'd have the wind knocked out of you, and this would turn into a ground fight with me on top."

Adrenaline was screaming through Jason's veins, making it hard to think, pissing him off in a purely chemical way. He knew this was just training, but a combination of the physical exertion and the sheer weirdness of doing this with his father was starting to get to him. "That's fine and dandy," Jason snapped, "but what am I supposed to do with that?"

Fremont's cold blue eyes narrowed, and Jason waited for him to react the way he'd seen him do with Orion. Orion and their father went toe-to-toe often, pushing each other's boundaries, needing to establish over and over who was in charge of the conversation. So Jason, naturally assuming this would be the same, braced himself for a _don't get smart with me,_ or some kind of snide comment.

His father said nothing, and Jason had no idea why this was disappointing. Fremont might say he wasn't pulling punches with Jason, but that clearly wasn't the case.

"It's easy to pick you up and throw you when you go all rigid like that," Fremont explained. "Just like a big old stiff board. I know it goes against everything your body is screaming at you to do…" He paused to wipe his brow. "But you gotta go dead weight on me."

That sounded insane to Jason, and he opened his mouth to retort, but Fremont continued. "Do it to me and I'll show you."

Jason had not been told to go slow, so he didn't. He charged his father, wrapping his arms around his legs as they collided, and expected his strength and follow-through to defeat whatever technique his father was trying to use. What happened instead was the twin pain of knees in his chest, and a second later Jason was flat on his face on the floor. It took him a second to realize he'd been rolled and vaulted straight over his father's legs.

"Get up," Fremont said, and Jason bristled.

"What do you think I'm doing?" he snarled, scrambling to his feet and turning to face him.

There was a definite awareness in his father's eyes now, an understanding that this fight and this anger weren't just a simple matter of training. Jason waited for him to address it head-on, the way he had seen him deal with almost every other confrontation, and once again, he didn't. "When I hit you," he explained, "go limp. Roll onto your back and move with me. Keep my momentum going forward. That's the most I can explain it. We're just gonna have to practice for you to get it."

Jason fought back a growl and didn't quite manage it. His father charged, and Jason tried the move, but he was thinking too hard about the placement of his hands, how he was going to land, what he could do about his father's arms wrapped around his legs, and the end result was Jason flat on his back, his father poised over him, his fist raised. Jason's hands flew to block his face.

" _What do you do_ ," Fremont yelled, " _when I've got you like this!?_ " Jason struggled and struck out, but Fremont shouted, "No! Pop up your hips!" Jason didn't understand. Fremont rained strikes down upon his folded arms, light ones, but jarring nonetheless. It made it hard to think, hard to hear what he was saying. " _Pop up your hips,_ " Fremont shouted again, and Jason did what he was told out of sheer frustration.

Fremont off-balanced, and Jason didn't need his other shouted directions. As soon as Fremont's hands hit the ground on either side of Jason's head, he scissor-kicked his way out from under his legs and flipped his father over onto his back. The tables were turned, and through the elated realization that he had bested the man, Jason caught himself grinning.

Fremont just stared up at him, not smiling back, but not offering criticism either. For a second they stayed that way. Then Jason scrambled off, feeling vulnerable and exposed.

"We're gonna try both of these again," he said, and suddenly Jason didn't want to.

"I'm done for the day," he said, dully. He could practically feel that bristle of disappointed affront in the air. Surely his father wanted to say something like, _we've barely been going at it for ten minutes, you really want to stop learning how to save your own damned life just because you feel weird?_ When his father didn't reply, Jason turned his way, and with a sinking sensation in his gut, realized he was going to walk away.

It wasn't even like his father was storming off. He was just leaving, just turning around and walking across the room, quietly and simply bailing the way he'd done to Jason and his mother when Jason was barely five. A part of him wanted to follow his father, to clock him good in the back of the head and start their fight over again. Instead he watched him leave.

For a long, timeless moment, Jason just stood. His heavy breathing evened out and the sweat that had begun to prickle at his forehead cooled and dried, leaving him feeling filthy.

He sensed a dull prickle in the air and knew what had caused it before he turned around. The Voltorb had returned, hanging back a respectable distance, but still watching Jason. It had a remarkably expressive face for something made of metal with only two eyes. It looked dubious and wary, but—Jason's stomach twisted—interested. He refused to let the thought that his father was right even begin to take seed.

"Get out of here," he said, but his words sounded flat even to him.

It didn't go, but it didn't attack either, and Jason stared it down. He knew, somehow, that the decision he made here tonight would be the first large step down one of two paths.


	3. The Third Dimension :Beth:

Pokémon Azure

Chapter 3: The Third Dimension

(Beth Larson)

Everything looked red through the viewfinder of Gina's PokéDex. Ivysaur was transposed in scarlet, all of his colors flat, an endless reel of scrolling data traveling up the screen to the left and right of Victoria's newest Pokémon.

"Can you send your Razor Leaves up in an arc, then down from above?" Victoria asked him, her voice steady and confident, but a very slight frown betraying her trepidation.

Ivysaur executed the move without hesitation. He planted his feet wide, tilted his head down, and aimed his budding flower forward at a 45-degree angle. At once a respectable swarm of sharp, hard, bright leaves the size of Beth's outstretched hand whipped from Ivysaur's back. They cascaded up in a strange, graceful dance, then took a sharp turn midair and pelted the duct taped "X" Victoria had put on the floor. The sound of the leaves hitting the concrete was exactly what Beth thought shuriken would sound like hitting their mark.

Beth had taken to borrowing Gina's Dex more often than not these days, whenever Victoria wanted to train her new Ivysaur. Victoria spent a great deal of her down time doing this. In fact, Beth couldn't remember her ever having spent this much unbroken time training up one of her Pokémon. She knew it wasn't that Victoria cared about Ivysaur more than Victreebel, Gloom or Butterfree. Victoria just understood that Ivysaur needed more time to adjust to her as a trainer.

On the surface, everything was fine. Ivysaur obeyed every command with accuracy and speed, a grim-faced little soldier, never once hesitating, stopping, using the wrong move, or flat-out ignoring his new trainer. But there was something in the Grass-type's expression, a haunted, hollow determination, and Beth thought sadly that she had never seen a trainer and a Pokémon who connected less on an emotional level.

The interesting part she had noticed, in peering through the Dex's viewfinder, was that Ivysaur's stats were climbing alarmingly fast. She'd finally thought to ask Tim about this, and the Champ had nodded with a look of dawning realization. Apparently this happened sometimes, where traded Pokémon levelled quicker, for whatever reason. Beth couldn't help harkening back to the days Blake, Gav and she had spent with the HM guy and the mirror of that advice he had given them when it was time to take Gav's Graveler.

"Good," Victoria was saying in response to Ivysaur's precision point Vine Whip. "Jason's given me some pointers about ways to dodge and block Fire moves, so if you're alright with it, I'd like us to challenge Kaylee at some point. Alright?"

Finn's Ivysaur—and Beth really had to try to stop thinking of him as "Finn's" Ivysaur—didn't even turn to face her. He just gave one stiff nod, still facing forward and poised for action. Beth's strong, confident sister seemed to deflate a little, her shoulders sagging, but she barked out another quick set of orders for Ivysaur to follow.

Beth turned her attention back to the screen. The longer they sparred and trained, the more Ivysaur's steadily-crawling stats reminded her of the Department of Population Studies' website, which featured a little counter that kept track of how many babies were born across Kanto every second. It was a small increase compared to the overall numbers, but it never, ever seemed to stop. Ivysaur's Attack, Speed, Special Attack, Defense and Health were constantly climbing skyward in steady, tiny intervals.

Beth looked up when Victoria sighed. "Alright," she said. "That's enough for today. I'm going to return you, alright?" She always made sure to get Ivysaur's consent for everything, and Beth privately wondered if that was a good idea. It probably wasn't helping Ivysaur feel like he wasn't a guest in her roster.

For the first time since training had begun, Ivysaur turned to look at Victoria. For just a second, Beth could see a flash of an expression on his turquoise face. He looked surprised, and beyond that, disappointed, but a second later he'd schooled his expression back into that neutral, flat obedience. He nodded, then faced forward again.

Victoria hesitated a full ten seconds, looking like she wanted to take it back and continue training, but in the end she recalled him. The moment he was gone the tension in the room broke, but was replaced by a heavy, uneasy melancholy.

Beth tried to frame this in a positive light for her. "He's getting really good with the Razor Leaf… stuff," she noted.

Victoria had noticed that Razor Leaf was the move Ivysaur struggled with the most. Vine Whip was standard, Tackle and the rest were hard to mess up, but Razor Leaf required some precision and a modicum of control over the leaves even after they left the Pokémon in question. Beth would never cease to be amazed at a Pokémon's inherent set of abilities. She wondered what it was that allowed a Grass-type to fire off leaves from its body, and yet still maintain a few seconds of control and say over where those leaves went once they flew out. The hold on the leaves didn't last for much longer than that, but it made the difference in a fast-paced battle. The Grass-type could utilize Razor Leaf in a number of ways, and it was true. Finn's Ivysaur was getting better at controlling the leaves once they left him.

 _Not "Finn's" Ivysaur,_ Beth reminded herself. _Not anymore._

As if her frankly depressing thought had triggered it, Victoria ran a hand through her wavy red hair, a nervous gesture Beth thought she had picked up from Gav. "How close is he to level 32?" She didn't sound excited.

Frowning, Beth glanced down at the data that remained on Gina's Dex for up to five minutes after the Pokémon it was looking at left. "Not very. He's about six levels off, maybe seven? Why?"

Victoria switched to massaging her cheekbones. "What do you think he'll be like when he evolves?"

For a second Beth thought Victoria was worried that Ivysaur's personality would change, the way Zahlia's Haunter's had. She opened her mouth to give her opinion, but Victoria seemed to realize she hadn't been clear enough.

"I mean, they say once a Pokémon evolves, if the trainer's not up to scratch, that's when things get really hard. Especially with traded Pokémon."

Beth frowned, lowering the Dex. "Oh, Vee, I don't think he would do that. He's really in this, you know? He wants to…" She trailed off.

"Avenge his real trainer," Victoria said, without a trace of bitterness, but an undeniable hint of sadness in her voice. "Still, I don't have a single Gym badge. Those are supposed to help, you know… 'establish my credibility.'" She huffed out a laugh with no mirth behind it.

Beth was quiet for a time. She could comfort Victoria and try to assure her it would be fine, but blind optimism didn't ever make her older sister feel better. Only logic did. "Even if something happens to Ivysaur after he evolves, and he's tempted to stop listening to you, I think he'll muscle through and still obey. What happened to him… what he saw, it's left a big imprint. I know you're struggling with that same imprint now, but it'll keep him on track. He's highly motivated."

 _Just like you,_ Beth thought sadly. Ivysaur and Victoria had a few things in common, and she wondered if either Pokémon or trainer understood that.

"Thanks," Victoria said, heavily.

Beth could tell her sister appreciated the vote of confidence, even if she wasn't convinced yet. She could also tell, however, that this part of the conversation was done.

"Oh," Victoria said, something evidently occurring to her. "Been meaning to ask… the heck is up with Kaylee lately?" Beth didn't follow for a second, and Victoria arched her eyebrow, analyzing her genuine look of confusion. "She's been acting more nuts than usual. The other day I went back to the tents and Kaylee just about took a flying leap out of hers when she heard me coming. Felt the need to explain to me she was in there grabbing some spices for dinner. Kept positioning herself between me and the tent even though I was only there to put my towel away." Victoria rolled her eyes. "Don't get me wrong. I was tempted to pull the 'big sister' card and demand that she turn out her pockets, but I can't imagine what she would be hiding. What would be dangerous in this place? Unless she's stuffed a littler of Pikachus into her pillowcase."

Beth knew full-well what Kaylee was trying to hide, not only from Victoria, but from everyone except her and Gina. Beth managed to turn her expression of pained amusement into just straight amusement, and hoped Victoria thought it was because she was picturing Kaylee stuffing her bed things with wild Pokémon. She really had no poker face, and Beth wondered how much longer Tim and Kaylee would succeed in keeping their relationship under wraps.

She couldn't even see why they were being secretive anymore. Beth persisted that no one would care beyond the initial surprise and a few questions. It was likely that Kaylee didn't think it appropriate to parade a relationship around in light of all of the struggles they were facing, but Beth disagreed. Anything that made the world a little happier, and brought people closer together instead of farther apart, was good in her books and worthy of being shared.

Beth stoutheartedly served as her friend's secret-keeper. "You know Kaylee," she said, huffing out a tiny laugh. "She's a weirdo. Just like your 'hubby,'" Beth teased. Victoria gave a very tiny jump at that word, and Beth rolled her eyes dramatically. "Oh, come on," she said, exasperated but fond. "I'm kidding." Victoria rolled her eyes right back. "You can't honestly tell me the idea of getting married to Gav is surprising to you. Seriously, we'll all be kind of shocked if it doesn't happen."

"What," Victoria asked, a little pink in the face but recovering. "You make it sound like there are bets being made about it. You all are way too invested in my love life."

"Rei always said he'd pony up a fat stack of marks if you guys got married in the next three years," Beth said, without thinking. She wanted to take it back the second it left her mouth. For a long moment both Larson sisters were silent, but Beth knew it wouldn't last.

Victoria leveled a concerned look at her sister. "Has he been… still… um, you know?" she asked.

Beth didn't have it in her to play dumb. The lingering amusement she had been trying to cling to died from her face as it was snuffed out inside her. She blinked rapidly before looking at the floor. "Um, yeah," she said, quietly. "He has. Um, I don't know. I don't really have the heart to block him, like I've done with everyone else, you know?"

She frowned at that, suddenly feeling like a terrible daughter. They had blocked their parents, aunts, uncles and cousins, and yet somehow her ex-boyfriend was higher on that list?

Victoria interjected, able to read the guilt off her sister like it was text written in a second language only she knew. "Stop that. I know that you didn't block him, not because you care about him more, somehow, but because he knew more. He was more involved. Mom and the others don't know much of anything. Of course they're worried, but Rei…" She trailed off, and Beth nodded.

Rei had been blowing up her phone ever since Pallet. It seemed, after everything they'd been through, after all his protesting, Rei wanted to help. His first attempt to contact Beth after the siege had gone live was a frantic, desperate series of voicemails that Beth hadn't been able to delete. They were short and to the point, mostly demands to know if she was okay, and pleas for her to call him. After several days went by with no response, he had begun to offer more targeted arguments and heartfelt assurances that he believed her. Everything she and the others had been wrapped up in was legitimate, and he understood why she had not been willing to share it with him before.

That message, oddly, was the first one that had made Beth cry. She had no idea why that was, when his voice had been so wrecked with worry and desperation during the first few messages. She supposed it was just the sheer relief that, for the first time, she knew he didn't blame her anymore. Still, Beth was in limbo. She knew she should have blocked him immediately, or else just answered him.

Victoria was quiet while she gathered her thoughts, and when Beth was ready she simply shrugged. "I don't really know what to do," Beth told her sister simply.

She expected Victoria's patented brand of loving, but stern advice. _We can't reach out to him. We've known this for years. I understand that he's worried, but it'll be easier for both of you if you keep up the "no contact" rule, rather than give him false hope._ She might even tell Beth that, if she really wanted to, she could message him just once to let him know she was okay, and leave it at that. That was about the most generous offer they could give Ida Silvermann's nephew.

Victoria shocked her to the core when she said, "Do what you feel is best. I don't know much about Rei's connections, or how well he'd fit with us. I don't know that he wouldn't change his mind once he heard everything. But he's at least proved he won't tell anyone. If he was going to do that he'd have gone to the papers by now." Beth just stared at her sister while Victoria looked off into the distance, thoughtful. "If he really wants to help, and that's something _you_ would want, also… then reach out to him. And I know Gav would agree with me. We trust you and your judgment. You'll do the right thing."

Beth was stunned for about a hundred reasons, but one of them rose to the forefront of her mind. Somehow, Victoria knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what Gav would say about an issue this important. It would be kosher to run it by everyone else too, just to be sure, but Victoria's words about Gav still rang true. She knew him that well, to be able to speak for him like this, and through the shock an unwanted stab of longing and regret hit home.

Beth had never been able to get to that point with Rei. They had never had the chance.

* * *

 _what's the weather like?_

Beth sent the text and waited. She was down one of the lesser-traveled corridors of the Power Plant, Gav's Marowak serving as her Ground-type guardian mostly to put the others' minds at ease rather than her own. Full roster type disadvantage or no, Beth knew her team could school any of the wilds in this place. Starmie, her top team member, was nearly double the level of the average wild they ran across, but it was a nice gesture to send her along with a bodyguard.

Her phone buzzed and a return text flashed across her screen. _Clear skies. Who do you want?_

Knowing it was safe to speak plainly now, Beth tapped back, _spikey, if possible. i know that's out of your way so if you can't do it that's fine._ She hit "send" and watched as her phone struggled a little to deliver the message to Alan Zachariah's secure line.

Even though Victoria had as good as given Beth hers and Gav's blessing to reach out to Rei, Beth couldn't do it yet. She didn't know if she was deep in avoidance behavior or genuinely needed more time to make up her mind. In the interim, she'd made herself useful the only way she knew how—touching base with Spikey.

Over the past several months, she and the host of Everything Under the Sun had exchanged covert emails, heavy with a clumsy code they seemed to be making up on the spot. Gav's PDA was in high demand at all times now, and Beth had to share it with others who had to keep in touch with various contacts or check the internet. None of their other devices had that capability.

Spikey had made the brilliant suggestion during their last email exchange to utilize Wilbur and his contact as a go-between to make their conversations easier, and Beth had promised that, sometime over the next few weeks, she would arrange an actual phone call. She'd been putting it off a little, still grappling with guilt over endangering the gregarious radio personality. Now, between the options of reaching out to Rei and continuing to talk with Spikey, it was clear which one would cause her less turmoil.

Alan Zachariah wrote back. _I've got a 30 min window. I'll contact her to see if she's free and let you know._

Beth tapped out a quick, _thanks,_ debated adding a smiley face, then decided Zachariah seemed a little too serious and straight-edged to appreciate an emoji, and left it off.

She expected to have to kill more time before hearing back from either Zachariah or Spikey, but Zachariah wrote back only five minutes later. _She's free. Teleporting now. Will call in 5._

Beth wrote, _thank you,_ again, and, feeling that the expression of gratitude looked too boring twice in a row, threw caution to the wind and added the smiley. If he thought she was a silly, vapid girl, so be it.

Beth didn't really have anything planned for this conversation, and hoped it wouldn't be a wasted trip on Zachariah's part. She had just come to the point of trying to think up an agenda when her phone rang, about three minutes early. Beth fumbled with her phone, almost dropped it, then answered.

"Hello?" she asked, breathlessly.

"Is this Beth?" a kind, matronly voice said on the other line, one very familiar to Beth from her countless hours in front of the radio. Beth grinned, already feeling a little starstruck.

"That's me! It's good to finally—" she began, just as Spikey said, "Oh, I'm so happy to—" They both stopped, insisted the other go first, and laughed.

Finally, Spikey spoke. "So I know we've only got twenty minutes, but I'm so glad you arranged this call. EUTS has been an absolute madhouse."

"I bet," Beth said, fidgeting a little. "Post-Pallet, I mean, everything's got to be really…"

Spikey continued on with Beth's train of thought, not giving Beth the feeling she was being cut off. It was more like she was simply being joined in her rapid conversational momentum. "Yes, absolutely! I've wanted for so long to arrange a face-to-face meeting with you and your group," she said, her voice a little mournful. "And I still want to, very badly, but I just don't see how I'll be able to get away right now. It would be suspicious for me to take a day trip when things are this chaotic. And I can't say I'm off getting a story, because then I'd have to return with some kind of material."

Beth nodded, realized she couldn't be seen nodding, and said, "Yeah, no, we totally understand. Maybe we can try for… a couple weeks from now?"

"That would be perfect!" Spikey said. "I'm thinking maybe sometime next month? Pick a day, any day, I'll make it work."

"No no," Beth said. "You're the one with an actual schedule, we just, well… we're just kind of in hiding so we're wide open." She laughed a little, awkwardly, and Spikey chuckled too.

"Alright, I'll let you know. I'll be in touch with this handsome young man here and he'll pass the message along to you, yes?"

"Yes," Beth said, "safer than sending it in an email, I agree."

They dissolved into talk of various other things, their conversation taking them through reported sightings of the foes who'd attacked Pallet, the news coverage of the event in general, and the public's theories about what had happened to Nathan Fremont, who had been missing in action for many long months. Twenty minutes flew by in a flash, and while they didn't come up with any brilliant solutions, they'd swapped valuable news and insight.

When they were getting ready to say goodbye, Spikey said, "Oh! Alan says to tell you 'colon upper-case D.' What does that mean?"

Beth frowned for a second, not understanding, then burst out laughing. "Tell him 'less than three,'" she responded, wiping at her eyes. Spikey laughed, proclaimed herself hopelessly out of touch, and bid Beth farewell.

She was in such a good mood that the wall of text that flashed on her screen accompanied by a vibrating hum took her completely off-guard. She was actually still smiling when she realized that the message was a novel-length text from Rei. It took her another few faltering seconds to lose her ear-to-ear grin. She couldn't help but skim the preview text, her eyes reading and her mind comprehending the words against her will.

 _God, I don't even know if you're still alive. I don't know what to do. A part of me thinks that something awful must have happened to you, otherwise surely you would have answered me by now? Even just to say that you're ok? You did that last time, god I was so stupid…_

Beth sucked in a breath, fortifying herself, then clicked the message open. She always clicked all of them open, just so they wouldn't remain unread in her inbox, taunting her that way.

 _God, I don't even know if you're still alive. I don't know what to do. A part of me thinks that something awful must have happened to you, otherwise surely you would have answered me by now? Even just to say that you're ok? You did that last time, god I was so stupid, all this time you've been trying to protect me, do right by me, and what have you gotten for it? A whole lot of grief. I swear to god Beth, I'll make it up to you if you'll let me. I want to help, so much. I wrote to you before about how of course I'd want to help, with my aunt being the victim of some kind of crime, and the more I think about it the more it makes sense that you and your sister and your friends came looking for us in lavender. I know now that what happened to her has to do with what happened in pallet somehow. I cant see the bigger picture and its driving me crazy. I want to do this for her and for you and for me, please, let me. I don't know what else to do or say. Im sorry._

Tears were streaming down Beth's face by the time she finished reading the long-winded message. She could practically hear it spoken in his voice, could see the way he'd be abusing his lopsided mohawk with both hands, raking his fingers through his russet hair in hard, agonizing sweeps. If he even still had the lopsided mohawk. He might have changed it by now, shaved it all off, grown it out, dyed it another bright color.

Beth closed her eyes and sucked in a steadying breath, but it didn't steady her at all. The emotional whiplash from elated and excited during her talk with Spikey to absolutely crushed was straight-up exhausting. Beth turned her phone all the way off, tucked it into her bra and got up to wander. Marowak followed after, patient and loyal, seemingly unconcerned with the fact that he had had to sit through a giggling phone call and was now going on a pointless stroll. Every so often his sleek bone mask would twitch this way and that, vestiges of the short attention span he'd had as a Cubone, but post-evolution, Marowak was able to buckle down and be serious.

Beth sniffed heavily, wiped the back of her hand over her nose, and didn't have to stoop very far to stroke Marowak across the back of the head with her other.

She'd thought she didn't know where she was going, meandering like a true wanderer, but after a few moments she realized she did have a destination in mind. Each of their group had a specific haunt, a place they hung out in when nothing else was going on, and Beth's feet were carrying her now to Blake's.

Almost all of their group operated in two dimensions: forward-back, left-right, always on the ground level, rarely looking up. The place was big enough that no one really overlapped when they wanted to be alone, but Blake had found his hiding spot by utilizing the third dimension. He went straight up. Beth often thought of him as an overgrown Meowth, leaping nimbly from kitchen counter to microwave to fridge to tall cabinet, seeing a path from point A to point B that the rest of them simply could not. Only instead of kitchen furniture, his playground was the massive, vaulted ceilings of the Power Plant. Beth thought she could figure out how he got up and down, though she'd never seen it in practice. The idea of him actually climbing those broken, hanging cables caused her stomach to lurch unpleasantly.

Blake saw her before she could spot him. "Who dares intrude upon my lair?" he said blandly from somewhere very high up.

Beth squinted skyward at a dusky corner of ceiling and thought she could see a pale form moving up there. "It is I, Lady Larson of Celadon," Beth said dramatically, performing a curtsey. She pantomimed holding a skirt up as she was wearing jeans. "I come bearing the gift of my radiant company. Also one bored Ground-type Pokémon."

Blake paused, apparently considering these boons. "I find this acceptable," he said, and then Beth gasped, because he had leapt suddenly into the air like he was somehow immune to breaking every bone in his body from a sixty-foot freefall. Beth fought the urge to cover her eyes and watched with taut nerves as he snagged handholds, leaping down on top of stacked-up generators, grabbing power boxes and finding sliding down a thick metal pipe the way a fireman would. She was feeling jittery but amused by the time he landed and strolled over to her on bare feet.

"Necessary?" she asked in a mock-scathing tone.

"Very necessary," he replied, shoving his hands into the pockets of his black cargo pants. He didn't ask Beth why she was there, which was an enormous relief. She didn't know what she'd have said. Instead Blake frowned down at Marowak. "Man, they're seriously making you walk around with him escorting you everywhere?"

"Yep," Beth replied, smiling down at Marowak with a kind of resigned fondness. "He's my knight in shining…"

She paused for so long that Blake prompted her. "Shining…?"

"I was gonna say 'cartilage,' but that's not right," Beth said, staring at Marowak blankly. "I feel like I just flunked primary, what is bone made of again?"

Blake just stared at her. "You're asking me? Fuck if I know."

Beth snorted and buried her face in her hand. "Oh, thank God, I don't feel so bad now if you don't know either."

"Don't use me as a measuring stick, I finished my education online like a plebeian."

"… How does that make you a plebeian?"

"I don't know."

"You just wanted an excuse to say the word 'plebeian,' didn't you?"

"Maybe."

Beth stuck her tongue out at him, but was grinning in earnest now. "But for real, I want to know what bone is made of now. Like, that'll eat me up if I don't find out."

"Let's borrow the PDA and look it up. Then Gav can see the question in his search engine history and silently judge us."

"Looking up what bone is made of is clearly a top-priority use of the PDA."

"Naturally."

It was so easy. Beth and Blake fell into banter the way she slipped beneath the surface of the water, wearing it like a second skin. He was morose and blunt as always, and nothing was safe from his black humor.

They strolled a bit, but wound up performing a large circuit of the same general area and soon wound up back where they'd started, at Blake's hideaway.

"So, it kinda makes me feel like a bad person, but I straight-up hate that Fearow," Blake honestly reported, surprising Beth as he began hoisting himself up a pile of abandoned circuit casings. He turned back, saw the trepidation on her face, and smiled. It was rare to see him offer one of those. A second later he released Grumpy and extended his hand to her.

"It's easy," he assured her. "Just follow my lead."

"You're seriously telling me to clamber up all this crap like a Mankey and willingly put myself and solid ground like sixty feet apart." Beth stared at him incredulously.

Blake rolled his dark eyes. "I'm not _telling_ you anything, you're a grown woman…" He trailed off, though, and retracted his hand just a little. "Can't say I ever pegged you as scared, though."

Beth narrowed her eyes at him. "Don't you remember the board game night?" she asked him. "We've already established that I can tell when you're trying to bait me."

"Doesn't mean you're not baited," Blake pointed out.

Beth scowled, but there was no real feeling behind the expression. "If I fall and die I'm coming back to haunt you."

"Like William Trentolds' Charmeleon?" Blake asked, interested, and it took Beth a second to recall that tidbit of information on the Champ in the Hall of Fame.

"Exactly like that, but way less a sweet reunion and way more a brutal life-ruining."

"So nothing like Trentolds, got it," Blake said, then shoved his hand out again. "Why'd you think I let Grumpy out? He'll be our safety net. Now c'mon." Beth only hesitated for another few beats. Then she took his hand.

For the first few bits of climbing, neither of them spoke. Beth was concentrating on following Blake exactly, looking down only at her hands and feet and never anywhere else. Then it got a little easier, and she glanced up to the back of Blake's head. He was in a gray long-sleeved shirt today, and the back of his collar had shifted slightly from their climb.

Beth could see his scars.

She'd been the one to help take over changing his bandages after Zeke. Tim had laid the groundwork of the initial care, but Beth had stepped in past that point, just in case it was weird for the two men who didn't really know one another well yet. Zahlia would have normally been first pick, but… after Lavender, she wasn't in the right frame of mind for any extra responsibility. She'd been told to focus on herself, Blake's wounds had needed tending, and Beth was more than willing to help.

The gashes were bad. Grumpy's talons were enormous and they'd cut deep, in sloppy, jagged trenches. The marks were a small price to pay for his life, but Beth still felt a hollow, sinking sorrow when she saw them. Only the top edge of one was visible now, stretching up from the collar of Blake's shirt and climbing up the back of his neck, but she knew that one. It crawled all the way down his back and twisted around his ribs.

Blake, oblivious that she was staring, went on about his Fearow now that the cadence of their climb was steadier. "Fearow. He's an asshole. I hate him and he hates me."

Beth snapped out of it. "That's just how it's gonna be, for now," she said, softly. "It'll get better."

"I dunno," Blake said, shrugging one shoulder. "He looks like he might be kind of tasty."

"Blake!"

"In a gamey, marinated-in-evil kind of way."

"You're terrible."

"You love me," he reported with confidence. They'd come to a tricky part and Blake paused, glancing back to her. "You first."

"Oh, hell no. You're delusional," she insisted, eying the crisscrossing, unstable tangle of fallen beams complete with hanging black cables dripping down from the stripped ceilings.

"I'll tell you exactly where to put your hands and feet," Blake promised. "We're going together."

Beth bellyached some more, but Blake was already moving into position behind her, one arm on either side of her. "Ready?"

"No! Haven't you been listening to me at all?"

"Not really," Blake admitted, a second before he nudged her forward and said, "left hand, black cable, 10:00."

" _All_ the cables are black!" Beth whined, but she snagged the thick, ropey hanging and clung tight.

"Right foot, metal beam," Blake instructed, and it was somehow clear to Beth which one he meant.

"I hate you," she droned.

"We've been over this," Blake said patiently. "Right hand, loopy cable, 2:00. You love me."

They progressed that way, climbing steadily upward in an increasingly steep angle, Beth defaming him more and more the higher they got. It was clear Blake was taking her up the 'easy way,' though. He was at the point where he could leap from this height with the full confidence that he'd grab the right jutting object to save himself a messy end.

"Left foot, platform of sanctuary," Blake finally said, though it was unnecessary. Beth scrambled her way onto it at once, squishing herself into the most secure corner of the gridded scaffolding. Blake, ever at his ease, loped after her and leaned over the dilapidated railing.

"I wish I could say the climb was worth it because the view is spectacular, but…" Blake trailed off.

Beth chuckled, edging a little closer to him but still maintaining a respectable distance from that ledge. "Yeah, I know. It's just a lot of Power Plant. Still, it's cool I made it up here. Bucket list checkbox and all that."

Blake gave her a weird look. "… Climbing heaps of old junk in the abandoned Power Plant was on your bucket list?"

"No, more of an ongoing, 'do one thing each day that scares you' bucket list requirement," Beth explained. "But I don't do one _every_ day because I don't want to stroke out before I'm twenty."

"Legit," Blake said. "Plus, our lives are scary enough as it is. You've had your daily requirement filled for years."

Beth saw it. For just a second, Blake disappeared. He was still standing exactly where he was, but a light winked out in his eyes for an instant. Not a single muscle moved on his calm, remote face, and in a blink he was back and engaged again, but Beth had seen it.

As if to prove her right, the subject Blake brought up next was a more serious one. "So, mom's been telling Zahlia some pretty interesting things about Ghost-types."

"Yeah?" Beth asked, eager to keep him talking, though a part of her had to wonder if his train of thought had gone from danger to Zeke to Lavender to Ghosts.

"Yeah, she sort of hinted at this when Zahlia and I visited her that one time, but she's expanding on it now. Thing she said first was that you can use a Ghost-type to… like…" He trailed off and frowned, waving his hand vaguely around his head.

Because he'd prompted her when she'd taken too long to pick a word earlier, Beth returned the favor. "Design wigs? I had no idea."

Blake gave her a bland, withering look, but it was coupled with a smile. "Gengar seems more like a milliner to me."

Beth stared at him for a second until the word clicked. "That's an awfully fancy word for 'hat maker' from a guy who can't remember what bone's made of."

"You don't know either!" he protested, but they got back on track after that. "Aaanyway. Ghost-types can give you an insight into what someone's doing, through possession. They enter your body and you act like them… I guess… but when the Pokémon returns to you you can figure out whatever it saw through the eyes of the possessed target."

Beth stared, open-mouthed. She hadn't heard of this technique, though that wasn't surprising. Blake was referencing the visit to his mother that had immediately preceded Zeke's attack, the destruction of Edith's cottage, and their harried flight to Pallet. Understandably talking to the rest of them about Ghost-type techniques hadn't been high on the Nakawa siblings' "to do" list.

"It gets more nuanced, though. So mom's telling Zahlia that if she's right, and she thinks she is, Zahlia can get like… like a 'direct feed' stream of images from Gengar's possession in real-time. No clue how to make that happen, but… could be useful."

"Well… well _yeah,_ but… wow. Do you think…" She trailed off. "When you say the Ghost-type enters the body and the person acts like them… do you think that means the Ghost-type can like, force that person to do whatever they want?"

Blake nodded. "It could certainly get that deep, yeah. The Channelers in Lavender were always sort of a joke, but fact of the matter is they'd start rushing tourists, babbling about weird things and basically acting like lunatics. Lots of folks thought it was just some kind of subculture or cult mentality but now I'm thinking maybe it was more."

"Wow," Beth said, sitting back on her heels and considering this. It was getting strangely easy to forget she was roughly six storeys above the ground now that she was situated. "Of course you know my mind is going to extraordinary things now. Like possessing one of Nakawa's lackeys and having them push him off a cliff."

"It would be so easy, as he always pencils in 'stand in repose over a cliff' during his Tuesday lunch hour," Blake agreed. Beth doubled up, laughing, and Blake, seeing this weakness, didn't relent in the slightest. "'Ah, what a beautiful morn for turning my back and inviting a gruesome death. Jenkins, fetch me my bedroom slippers.'"

Beth managed to mouth out the word, "Jenkins?" without any sound, wiping her eyes, and Blake levelled her a serious look.

"Of course. He's got to have a manservant named Jenkins. And he's got to be called a 'manservant' otherwise you might get confused and think he employed a pogo stick instead. Easy mistake." Beth waved her hands at him to stop, which he did not. "It's actually remarkably hard to find steady work as a pogo stick. They're forming a union, I hear." Blake gave an approving nod to the tears now freely streaming down Beth's face. "I know, their plight is moving."

And Beth knew why she had come now. She'd needed to laugh, needed to feel normal—she'd needed this, right here.


	4. Out of Options :Gav:

Pokémon Azure

Chapter 4: Out of Options

(Gav Harrison)

The new voicemail was short and sweet.

" _What have you gotten yourself into? I can help you, but you've got to_ let _me first!"_

Gav fought the urge to rewind it just to listen to Armstrong's voice one more time. As angry and clipped as his tones had been, it was still the only link Gav had to the man who had essentially raised him. Peripherally, Gav was even impressed. The Pewter Gym Leader had managed to find a phone Gav hadn't blocked already. He thought he'd gotten them all. He'd systematically entered and blocked any number he could remember: family, friends, neighbors, stores Armstrong might frequent, every Pokémon Center in Pewter. Gav wondered if Armstrong had actually purchased a cell phone, something the technologically-backwards mountain man had avoided his whole life up till now.

Gav shut his phone off and stowed it. Alana was due again in a couple of hours. It was hard to believe two more weeks had passed since her last detox session, and two weeks since they had first been given the chemical-free Pokéballs. Gav had been able to convince his team to enter them without too much fuss, though Diglett had been a little wary. The others, by and large, encountered no issues either, though Jason had still not managed to talk Aerodactyl into it.

And, Gav noted, Jason would definitely have his hands full on that front as, somewhere along the line, he had picked up another team member. Jason hadn't complained to Gav about the smudge-nosed Voltorb directly, but he'd heard tale of it passed along by Gina, no doubt, the only person he really spoke to anymore. The little Electric-type could now be seen tailing uncertainly after Jason, as if expecting to have something thrown at it. Gav thought he saw a lingering look of trepidation on the younger Fremont's face every so often, like he was waiting for the moment he'd come to his senses and reconsider.

It was out of character. All his life Jason had avoided adding an Electric-type to his roster, but something had happened to change his mind. Gav didn't know what.

In spite of the new addition to his team, Jason was still in a bad mood—an even worse one than he'd been in after their uncomfortable discussion the night Alana had last visited. He wasn't the only one. Kaylee could be seen scowling more often than not, especially whenever Amaris was present, though the redhead was gone more often than not. He kept vanishing, and it was only because Gav knew he wouldn't actually leave the Power Plant and put them in danger that he didn't actively look for him. He had no idea where he was getting off to, but couldn't blame him. They all had their secret places these days.

Gav's reception wasn't very good here, and as a result his hideaway was an access entry near the back of the plant that allowed him to still be hidden from view but physically outside the building's dense, signal-muffing, insulated walls. It was here Gav sat now, his bad leg stretched out in front of him, his good one pulled up to his chest. His phone was off; he only really maintained it as an emergency precaution to keep in touch with the others. His PDA was never off, though, and got priority seating in the outlets on the generator Alana had brought them.

Gav waited for his PDA to establish its signal, his mind wandering in a vague way from topic to topic as he did. As usual, about 26 pings of news flashed through on his device once it had had time to think.

Gav sorted and scrolled. Most of it looked like junk, or a lot of the same: " _The manhunt for the group of individuals that fled Pallet over two months ago continues…" "No new leads on the whereabouts of Ando Harrison's children, Gav and Kaylee, photos below…"_ Though there was one worrisome piece that speculated that Nathan Fremont's continued sabbatical suggested he had something to do with Pallet. Frankly Gav was a little surprised they hadn't drawn that conclusion earlier.

He filed the stories away into their respective folders, but paused as he reached the last one.

" _Investigative team to scour Kanto's less-travelled areas for Pallet fugitives."_

With a cold pit in his stomach, Gav opened the story.

 _The Celadon City Police Department has organized an elite group of investigators and other personnel whose sole job over the next several months will be the tracking and detaining of the Pallet fugitives. These trainers, names and photographs below, have been at large since Kanto's smallest town was ransacked in a brutal terror strike in March of this year._

 _Celadon Police Chief Wilbur Amrhein went on the record stating, "I don't think it's a good use of city resources to try to run down a group of teens who haven't done anything other than fight off the real Pallet assailants. We've got no evidence to back up the assumption that they were involved. Even saying they're wanted for obstruction of justice is a stretch. I'll support the investigative team, but let it be known I don't support this decision."_

 _Amrhein is two years overdue for retirement._

Gav had scarcely finished reading the snarky final sentence when a ping came through on his PDA, a different bell tone that signified he had email in his nidofan account. Gav clicked the message.

 _Turn your phone on. Need to talk. AZ._

Gav closed his eyes, knowing what Alan Zachariah wanted, then fished his phone out of his pocket and booted it up. It took about a minute to become fully functional, and before he had a chance to call Wilbur's associate back, Zachariah's code name popped up in a new call. _Alphabet is calling,_ it read, so named by Kaylee since his initials were A-Z.

Gav jabbed the button to accept the call. "Hey," he said. "I think I know why you're calling."

Zachariah gave the smallest huff of stiff amusement on the other line. "Shoulda known. That device of yours warned you?"

"Yeah," Gav said. "I was actually gonna call you if you didn't call first. How serious is this group?"

"Dead serious. Sorry to say it, but they've got their best men and women on the job. Wilbur tried to put a stop to it—you mighta seen that article."

"Yeah," Gav replied, bitterly.

"Right?" Zachariah added with a sigh. "But, as you can see, he wasn't successful. He can't risk looking like he's trying to stop them. If he wants to stay situated in the department he's gotta be seen cooperating from now on."

"Understood. I don't want any trouble for him."

Zachariah sighed. "If it were up to Wilbur, he'd turn in his resignation and fight alongside you with his walking stick. I've had to convince him he's the most help staying exactly where he's at."

"That's right," Gav insisted. "Hey, listen. Thanks for the heads up. I'm thinking this means we've gotta move."

"I'd do it sooner than later," Zachariah said. "They're gonna need some time to debrief and cook up a plan of action, but this group works fast. They'll be on the move within 48 hours, I'm thinking. The old Power Plant will be one of the first places they hit."

"Thanks again, Alan," Gav said, and they hung up.

Gav took exactly five seconds to bury his face in his hands and wish he was someone else. Then he got up to call the group together for a meeting.

* * *

"Awesome," Jason said, a wide, fake grin on his face. "This just goes from good to better."

It had taken a while to get their team assembled. In the end the Gengars were deployed to go find Amaris, who was, as always, difficult to locate. His lateness seemed to put Kaylee on edge, though Tim gave no outward sign of still being upset about the words they'd exchanged half a month ago. Tim, in fact, was staying quiet, which surprised Gav a little. He'd been so adamant about utilizing his mother's place as their next safe house that Gav had honestly expected him to pipe up immediately when given the news that they had to leave.

"Maybe we can vacate for a time, and come back once they've decided no one's been here," Victoria suggested.

"I doubt that would work," Blake said on a sigh. "No matter how well we clean up, it's pretty obvious that people inhabited this place. We've left signs of life. I don't think they'll leave this place alone for good even if the bigger group moves on."

Zahlia nodded. "Even if they don't leave one member behind as a stakeout, they'll probably keep visiting at random to see if we come back." A dull silence settled on their group.

"What if we picked a camp spot out in the woods somewhere?" Gina suggested hopefully. "I mean, just a really random location. The odds they'd pick that spot to investigate would be slim to none."

"Aerial sweeps," Orion said, his voice dead. "It'd be too easy to send out Flying-type envoys to look out for clusters of tents. And even if we were to camp down in a densely forested area, the Police have trained birds with eyes far keener than a human's. They'd know what to look for."

"Even if we don't make fires?" Beth asked, sounding disappointed.

"Even then," Nathan Fremont affirmed from where he stood, back against a wall, arms crossed.

Orion wasn't looking at any of them, instead staring off to the side. It almost looked like he wasn't listening, but now that he had contributed, Gav knew he was. The elder Fremont brother absently ran his right hand across his left, tracing one of the uglier, deeper scars there. It was a habit he had developed over the last several weeks.

"Well, we can't go back to Pallet," Kaylee said, clearly not in a good mood, but struggling to contribute nonetheless.

"Obviously," Jason said, and Kaylee rounded on him.

"I'm just ruling places out, you don't need to be snarky."

Gav lifted a hand before this could degenerate into yet another fight, but Jason didn't appear interested in retaliating. "It would be really easy to list places we can't go." Kaylee shot him a mildly annoyed look, and he met her eyes to offer her an apologetic one.

"The PLF," Amaris said, the first time he had spoken in two weeks. "I understand we're not exactly in their good books, but they've got the resources and manpower to hide us."

Tim let out a very small sigh that nevertheless caught most of their attentions. As one, they turned to him, and he only looked a little uncomfortable before he spoke. "I've actually already tried to reach out to them, but they haven't returned a single one of my calls or messages."

This was disheartening news indeed, and Gav rubbed his forehead and closed his eyes. "What all have you been trying to ask them?"

"Just that, really," Tim said. "Also I just… sort of wanted to test the waters. See if they're even remotely interested in still working with us. We've got the same goals, but…"

Kaylee finished the thought for him. "Drastically different ideas about how to achieve them."

Gav felt a stab of annoyance but tried not to let it derail him. The PLF did have the resources and manpower, not only to hide their group, but to contribute so much more overall. The fact that they were stonewalling Tim now was a kind of avoidance that strayed right into the territory of disgusting cowardice.

The silence that settled back on their group was prickly, though Gav noted one thing. It had to be one of the first times they'd gotten together to talk and had heard from everybody at least once. Even Fremont had opted to speak up, though his addition had been small. Full participation was getting rarer these days, as certain members of their group were more likely to vanish into their own heads than contribute.

Kaylee let out an agitated sound. "We're not getting anywhere," and before anyone could call her unhelpful, she hurried on. "Can we please hear what Tim has to say about his mom's place again? I know we're all leery about using anyone's residence, but I mean… come on. He wouldn't have offered if it wasn't safe. It's his mom."

Gav knew she had a point, but had seen too many of their best-laid plans go to hell in a handbasket when everything had seemed perfect. "Okay," he said, though, purely because they were out of options. "Let's go over it again."

"It's a spacious place, but it's in a Pewter neighborhood where that's not really uncommon. As you know," Tim said to Gav and Kaylee, "Pewter's got a pretty good mix of lower-, middle-, and upper-income areas. I grew up in the poorer side of town, but the place I got my mom is in one of the more affluent, upper-class sections. Not so much that it's at constant risk of property crime, but enough that the police patrol there often enough to prevent that sort of thing. Closest neighbors are miles away. And, I think the best part, is that there are a couple of indoor training rooms. I know everyone wants to get out into the sun again, but after what Orion said about aerial sweeps… doesn't sound like a good idea. Mom hasn't been, uh… 'open for business,'" he said, tossing air quotes around that phrase, "for years now. Too much to upkeep now that she's getting older. Used to be she'd have a lot of kids that'd stay for a week or two, but not anymore. We wouldn't have to worry about people randomly showing up, either. It's a gated property, so even if they tried, we'd just buzz and let them know we're not accepting any guests."

"It sounds… kinda perfect," Gina said, looking tentatively around the group.

"Is there a catch?" Blake asked suspiciously.

Tim frowned, but gave that genuine thought. "Not… that I can think of. Well, I mean, it would involve going back into a city, and I know you guys wanted to avoid that. But, like I said, that neighborhood isn't frequently travelled."

Gav wracked his brain to think of a hole in the plan, feeling a little bad as he did so. Sometimes it sucked not to be able to take something for face value and collapse back in relief, trusting there would be something soft and cushy to catch him. "How much does your mother know?" he finally asked.

This gave Tim pause. "… Nothing yet," he admitted. "But if we decide to do this, I'm gonna tell her everything. She'll keep your secret, not just because I'm involved, but…" He trailed off.

Zahlia cleared her throat softly. "Do you think you'll tell your mother about what really happened to your father?"

Tim didn't flinch or pull any kind of expression to show whether or not this subject caused him pain. "Maybe not that part, yet. Not sure how to breach the subject. But… she'll know almost everything, and be ready for us by the time we arrive." He blinked, then looked back to the group. "If we arrive," he added.

Gav regarded him for a moment while the others murmured amongst themselves, weighing the pros and cons in a more informal discussion. Some of them remained stubbornly quiet, of course, and Nathan Fremont was assessing Tim coldly, sizing him up as if looking for chinks in his armor.

He had to hand it to the current Champ. He was trying very hard to give them the space and time they needed to make this decision. Gav was beginning to get a decent understanding of the other man, and knew him to be passionate, straight-forward and frank, the kind of person who would fight for something doggedly if he thought it was the right thing. It had to be difficult to bite his tongue on a subject he clearly felt strongly about and let them come to terms their own way.

"I think we need to put this to a vote," Victoria said, and Gav nodded.

"All in favor?" she asked, and most hands rose into the air. It was easier to count those who weren't in favor: Fremont, Orion, Jason and half of Blake, who was moving his hand in a so-so motion. With a start, Gav realized that Amaris was completely in favor of the motion. Not sure what had caused the Initiate to change his mind, but not about to draw attention to it, Gav instead addressed those who were opposed. "Orion?"

Orion took a second to answer. "Dad and I were on the run for over a year. There are ways to do it that don't involve other people, though there's an added challenge of traveling in such a large group. It was easier when it was just the two of us. Still, I think it can be done. We would just need to be willing to inhabit some pretty uninhabitable places."

"Like where?" Beth asked, not challengingly, but with genuine curiosity.

Fremont let out a short laugh. "Places that aren't very fun to live in, like Seafoam." There was a collective shudder through half of their group.

"I'm… not down with that," Kaylee said bluntly. "We'd freeze."

"Plus, what good would we be able to do from such a remote location? It's illogical," Amaris added, his voice still dull and flat with exhaustion.

Orion merely tossed up a twitchy shrug. "It's my two cents. Majority wins, so." He stopped talking there.

Gav felt the corner of his mouth twitch in uncontrollable irritation, but Kaylee gave voice to what he had been about to say.

"Orion, you know that's not how we work," she said, sounding disappointed but patient. "If we don't have a unanimous vote, we address _why_ we don't, so we can get everybody on the same page."

Orion jerked his head to show he understood, but said nothing. Gav had no idea if he and his father were convinced or not.

"Jason?" Victoria asked, to her credit not sounding at all like she was dreading his answer or warning him to behave.

"Same," he said, dully. When it was clear that wasn't enough, he continued. "Really don't like the idea of putting Tim's mom at risk. Just remember how perfect Edith's place seemed, too."

There was a pause after that during which time the group seemed to be waiting for Jason to explode, storm off, or say something else. When he stayed put, Tim spoke up.

"When I joined the PLF I knew I might be putting myself into some dangerous situations," he explained. "I didn't know the full scope, like we do now, but there were still pockets of criminal activity the group was looking into. I got in over my head a few times." He smiled a little at that, the expression a weird blend of fondly amused and strangely hollow. "I decided early on my family was never going to pay the price for my decisions. I've got a roster of some of my higher-leveled team members stationed with mom at all times, plus dad's old team, plus a teleporting Pokémon. They know the drill and how to evacuate her if anything goes down. I told her it was for her safety since Champ's families are sometimes the target of attacks."

This, more than anything, settled Gav's nerves a little, and he could tell it mollified some of their group, too. The Fremont brothers each pulled a different face, Orion's a narrowing of the eyes and a grim expression and Jason's more of a cringe.

"That's… good. Honest, that makes me feel a little better about this. But how often have you had to evac your mom? Never, right? We go there, we up the danger factor a hundredfold."

That was the crux of it, what it all boiled down to, and Gav could feel his energy waning under the weight of the constant uncertainty they had to live with. It was true; there was no good answer, no perfect solution, and that, weirdly, was what convinced him. "Blake?" he asked, perfunctorily, because at this point it was clear all the reservations were the same. Blake, indeed, just nodded.

For the second time in that conversation, someone else took the words out of his mouth. This time it was his fiancée.

"What we're going to have to accept is that nothing is going to be perfectly safe from here on out. We lost that a while ago, even if it took us some time to realize it. In an ideal situation we would never have to put anyone in danger ever again, but we have to face facts. We've got to stay free agents, and in order to escape detection and capture, we need another place to stay. That's non-negotiable. Not to make us sound like superheroes, but we're the ones best situated to stop this, and we have to do what we have to do to keep fighting. If that's involving others, so be it. It sucks, but it has to be done. We might be endangering a few people here and there… people we care about, even. But the sheer number of people and Pokémon who will be at risk if we can't make a move far outstrips that handful."

It was cold and calculating and logical, and Gav could tell her words had rubbed a couple of people the wrong way, but her speech had had its intended effect. He could see it—the slow acceptance, albeit reluctant, that passed across the faces around him.

"Alright," he said to Tim, speaking for the group at large. "Thank you. If at all possible, I'd like us to be out of here in 48."

* * *

Tim had prepared them for it, but that didn't stop Gav from hiking his eyebrows high across his head when they teleported in under the covered awning of his mother's second home in Pewter. After taking his obligatory, cursory paranoid glance around to make sure they were really alone, Gav craned his head from side to side to try to take in the full, sweeping expanse of the yard surrounding the home. He felt, suddenly, that Tim's assessment of this property being "semi-affluent-upper-class-but-not-really" was a laughable misclassification.

Just from what he could see, the grounds were enormous, easily able to swallow up four of the clearings around Edith's cottage. Similar to Edith's cottage, though, was the protective line of trees that completely blocked them from view, even if someone passing by had been able to see this far back into the property.

"Gate's beyond the trees," Tim explained. "Come on, let's go inside."

The others clambered after him, a few needing to be nudged to break them out of their daylight-stupor. Tim threw the double-doors wide and the group followed him inside.

Gav had been expecting a setup similar to the little inn he and the others had stayed at when they were all rooming in Pallet the first time, perhaps a little lobby near a reception area which would lead to a hallway of rooms for rent. The only thing on this ground level that looked like it belonged in an inn was a small check-in desk tucked away to the side. Everything else had clearly been refurbished and revamped to make it look more like a single-family residence again. The floors were rich, dark wood, though a long indigo carpet took up much of the walkway ahead of them. The ground floor was expansive and sweeping, stretching out wide to either side. To his left a fireplace crackled in a the far wall, and around it were a number of couches, plush armchairs, and even a few beanbags set up in a semicircle. It looked like somebody had just been having a meeting there. Gav frowned.

"Tim?" a voice called from somewhere above, and Gav jumped slightly and peered up. He'd been so focused on the first floor he hadn't bothered looking up yet, but now he spotted the second floor banisters running left and right high above him. A middle-aged woman with her honey brown hair folded into a plait hurried down the stairs to meet them. No fewer than four Pokémon paraded down after her. Gav spotted a Magneton, Graveler, Kadabra and Lickitung before Tim turned to his mother and opened his arms for a hug. Katherine Broome wrapped up her son so tightly that Gav actually had to turn away. He noticed many of the others did, too.

Tim's mother extricated herself from her son and beamed across the way at the rest of them. "You're hungry, aren't you?" she said. Gav flicked his eyes back up to meet her face, and noted with a measure of sorrow that it was prematurely lined. She was smiling, and he knew she was genuinely happy to have them, but there was a decades-old sorrow that still clung to her, informing her every expression. It was a subtle undercurrent, like someone had tried to paint over a dark color with a paler one. Gav knew the look.

"Yeah," Kaylee said, sheepishly, popping up near Tim's elbow. "I guess we should introduce ourselves first though, huh?"

"I know who you are," Mrs. Broome said, her face suddenly transported with delight. She rested her hands on Kaylee's shoulders and positively beamed at the girl before pulling her into a hug as well. Gav couldn't see the expression on his sister's face from this angle, but imagined it would be laugh-out-loud hilarious.

Kaylee stiffened under the onslaught of motherly affection and stammered out a, "Oh, um, uh, nice to meet you—thank you, uh, aw, jeez," before hugging her back. Gav glanced up at Tim, smirking, expecting to see the Champ looking fondly exasperated at his mother's over-the-top display of affection, but Tim actually looked a little nervous.

Not sure why, Gav turned back to Mrs. Broome, who was now releasing Kaylee and fussing over her hair and exclaiming over how cute it was. Gav could see part of Kaylee's face now, and, sure enough, she was fire engine red.

"I was so happy to hear—" Mrs. Broome began, but at that moment she caught her son's eye. Something in Tim's expression caused her to falter, and she finished with, "to… hear we'd be having company." It sounded like she was covering up what she'd originally meant to say. Gav noted with some amusement that none of the rest of them got the fawning exclamations and fussy treatment that Kaylee had. Maybe Broome had given his mother a silent "cease and desist" signal. "I'm sorry, here I am making you all stand with your things. Just put them down, anywhere's fine. We'll have Machoke and Graveler help you pick out rooms and bring them all up later."

"If it's all the same," Fremont said, speaking up at last from where he was leaning against the doorframe, "I'd like to retire for the day."

Mrs. Broome jumped a little as if embarrassed she hadn't offered that to any of them. "Of course. Why don't I have you follow Magneton upstairs? It can show you to whatever room you like best."

"That's gonna be literally the first room I come across," Fremont assured her, but eyed the floating Electric-type with interest. "Nice," he said, gruffly. "Well cared for."

It took Mrs. Broome a second to realize that had been a compliment. Gav couldn't blame her—Fremont's voice was so frequently stern and rough that it was easier to assume he was slinging insults 24/7. "Oh—oh, thank you, it… they all belonged to my husband."

A short, stifling silence settled over their numbers, but Mrs. Broome didn't let it last. "Please send Magneton down to get me if you need anything, alright, Mr. Fremont?"

"Nathan," he corrected her. "I will." With that, he pushed off from the door frame and at once Gav realized that he hadn't been leaning to appear cool and aloof. His legs shook when they had to shoulder his full weight again, and he wobbled before he got to the banister. He clung to it tightly and hoisted himself up each step as if it caused him pain, but resolutely did not turn back to look at any of them.

Mrs. Broome waited until Jason and Orion's father had been shut away in the first room on the second floor. Then, with the air of someone trying very hard to inject levity into the tense room, she said, "Let's eat!"

Tim's mother led them straight through the large room, and now that they were inside it proper, Gav could see hallways that peppered the distant walls. She took them almost all the way to the back wall, then turned them right down a much wider hallway. It led past some closed doors and ended in a spacious kitchen, done up in what Gav recognized to be a similar color scheme to the Pewter City Gym. He smiled fondly.

"My compliments to your decorator," he said softly, running his knuckle across the high-polished, hewn granite countertop. He didn't want to smudge it with his fingertips.

Mrs. Broome turned to beam at him. "I'll take those compliments then, since it was me! And you… you're Gav, aren't you?" she said, putting her hand out to shake his while some Pokémon got to work removing food from a number of ovens and pulling foil off of pans cluttering a countertop. Silverware rattled in the drawers, plates were pulled from cabinets, and all Gav could think was that this was one of the first times he could remember where he had met someone new and was called Gav—just Gav, not Ando's son or Brock's grandson. He hoped the smile he gave Broome's mother in turn helped to portray his gratitude.

"Help yourselves and dig in," Mrs. Broome said. "I'll make my way around and meet you all as we do. My goodness, there's a lot of you. Not that that matters! Not that I mind," she quickly added. "The more the merrier. And I don't mean that as a throwaway phrase. I genuinely enjoy it when this place is full."

"They know, mom," Tim said fondly, half-covering his smile with one hand.

Mrs. Broome moved around to them in turn as she promised, and Gav was free to ladle sausage and eggs, bacon, a fruit medley, and what looked like a muffin-sized quiche onto his plate. Victoria, who had been freed up next, went for the sushi with a small smile.

"Can't remember the last time we ate this well," she commented to Gav, who nodded heartily.

"If I never see beef jerky again, it'll be too soon."

Soon the group was situated, each with a plate and a cup in hand, and Mrs. Broome looked around her kitchen. "I sort of imagined us taking this out to the fireplace, if that's alright. Tim told me you all like to have 'group pow-wows,'" she said, lifting air quotes up, "and I figured maybe that would be a good place for you?"

Gav nodded, feeling a surge of warmth at the idea of her fussily arranging the furniture in a way she thought might be conducive to their plotting. "Thank you… you're much too kind."

The group shoveled their food down in a feverish silence. Mrs. Broome, who must have eaten already, just smiled happily around them and engaged her son in quiet talk. "Nick and Casey are supposed to be by any minute now, too," she said, pulling back her sleeve to peer at a thin silver watch with a heart-shaped face.

"Good," Tim said. "Nick's been so damned busy it's like he's the Champ already." He chuckled.

"Shame we can't have a rematch on the lawn," Gina said wistfully, looking out one of the several windows through which buttery summer sun streamed. "All I can think of is that big training session we had at the Plateau."

"Oh," Mrs. Broome said, jumping to her feet. "Are you all mostly done eating? I can show you, I think you'll like it." The group exchanged looks, but got up to hurry after Mrs. Broome, who was already scurrying off down another wide hallway.

Up ahead, Kaylee nudged Broome in the ribs and grinned, something she'd taken to doing a lot more lately. "Where's she taking us?"

Tim shrugged, his eyebrow quirked. "Toward the… greenhouse, I guess? I can't imagine what she wants to show us there."

"You have a greenhouse?" Victoria asked, though Gav saw she was trying to play it cool.

Tim smiled her way. "Yeah, but, I mean, it's nothing special. At least, it wasn't the last time I saw it."

Gav's curiosity piqued as they passed a few closed doors, heading straight to another set of glass double doors leading to a sunlit rectangle of bright green. Many of their number hesitated, as if the direct sun on their skin would turn them at once to ash. Gav knew the odds of one of those "aerial sweeps" happening right as they entered the greenhouse were slim to none, but it still gave them pause.

Mrs. Broome glanced back at them and interpreted their uncertainty correctly. "Oh!" she said, blinking rapidly and turning a little pink. "Oh, I'm sorry, of course you're nervous about being spotted from above. But please, don't worry. It's one-way, mirrored glass up there. The only thing anyone will see is the reflection of the sun."

A ripple of relief and happiness crossed through the group, and Tim raised his eyebrows at his mother. "Wow, mom. When did you get that replaced?"

"Around the same time I added the expansion," she said with a cryptic smile. "Come on! I can't wait to show it off."

Mrs. Broome led the way through the double-doors into a greenhouse about the size of a studio apartment, but that was, evidently, only the "foyer" to the main attraction. Gav saw even Tim's jaw drop from the corner of his eye at the spectacle that stretched out before them.

"The expansion" was putting it lightly. The smaller greenhouse opened up into an enormous, sprawling larger one with vaulted ceilings that had to arch at least seven storeys high, if not more. It was less a greenhouse and more an indoor park, and as Gav tore his watering eyes from the sunny glass ceiling he spotted a small pond dead ahead. Past that was a meadow that made him automatically want to break out into a sprint. There were even trees growing along the glass walls to either side.

"Holy crap, mom," Tim said, managing to speak at last. "When the hell did you do all of this?"

Mrs. Broome was clearly pleased. "The planning process was slow, but once I figured out what I wanted I hired some contractors who finished it all in just over a month, if you can believe it!" She grinned at their surroundings. "Well? Go on! Explore, let some of your teams out."

"Don't mind if we do!" came a familiar voice from behind them, and Gav and most of the others jumped slightly as they spun to look.

Nick and Casey had arrived. Casey sported an orange baseball cap advertising his Onix-eptable Prank and Joke Shop that clashed horrifically with a lime green t-shirt. Though it was steamy in the greenhouse foyer, Nick wore his black trench coat as he always did. Gav noted with some concern that Nick looked happy, but exhausted.

Tim narrowed his eyes at his friends, smiling. "Did you guys know about the greenhouse mansion mom built?"

Casey and Nick adopted innocent expressions. "Us? In on it? Of course not," Nick said with a smile. "Well?" he added, glancing around to the others. "What're you waiting for?"

To no one's surprise, Kaylee was one of the first to quick-draw her team. Both her Arcanines emerged from red light, and the first thing she did was call over to them, "No setting anything on fire!" Her older canine nodded seriously, but the younger one blew smoke from his nostrils and offered his trainer a lopsided, goofy doggy grin. He earned himself a narrow-eyed look of instant disapproval from his older sister.

Victoria's team materialized next, which surprised Gav for a second before he realized it really shouldn't have. She was a Grass trainer in a greenhouse. Butterfree flapped rapidly, dipping toward the ground for a second before taking off high into the sky, aiming for the crisscrossed metal support beams. Gloom and Victreebel hung by their trainer, but Ivysaur looked instantly on guard and confused. He backed up several feet, then stopped, and finally settled for observing everyone warily.

Jason selected Venusaur first, which was again no surprise. His starter immediately took a heavy seat on the lawn, face up, eyes closed. He let out a loud, rumbling sigh and proceeded to sunbathe like it was his only job in the world.

Jason's Fearow, however, was the exact opposite. He flapped wildly as soon as he was released, nearly knocking over Gloom in the process, and took off in a messy, jagged line.

Gina hesitated. In the end, she wound up not going with Charizard, which Gav privately felt was a good idea. A creature with an external, ever-burning flame in a greenhouse seemed like a recipe for disaster. Gyarados appeared instead, and like Jason's Fearow, he soared high. The heat must have been conducive enough to aid in his gliding, and soon he was nothing more than a big blue streamer rippling through the sunlight above. It was a good thing he'd opted to go high rather than dive into the small pond; the water would have surely overflowed from something that large splashing in.

The other Pokémon Gina opted to send out was, surprisingly, Ekans. Apparently Gina wanted to give her newer, less utilized team member some time to socialize. Ekans was still shy, though, and slinked away immediately. Gina followed him at once, crawling on all fours to where her snake had slithered into a bush.

Beth took Gina's lead and jammed the release on two Pokéballs that turned out to contain Shellder and Tentacool. Both materialized in the pond, which should have made them more comfortable, but it didn't end up helping much. Shellder clammed up, Tentacool went still, and a second later they both jostled to try to hide behind one another.

Blake glanced around at the proceedings, looked skyward as if sizing up the already crowded airspace, and opted to go with Golbat. The second his bat appeared, however, it began to spaz out and freak over the copious amounts of bright sunlight, and Blake returned it at once. Gav hadn't seen Zahlia's brother go red very often, but he did now. He released Farfetch'D instead, and his smaller bird flapped around for about ten seconds before settling on Blake's shoulder.

"Go. Socialize," Blake commanded, but Farfetch'D just fluffed his feathers up, settled lower on Blake's crowded shoulder, and closed his eyes. Blake rolled his. "Yeah, you're definitely my bird."

Gav smiled at his gathered friends, taking in the buttery sunlight and drinking in the rapidly increasing sounds of Pokémon snuffling around, exchanging greetings, and calling out softly. He hadn't been able to let out Onix much at all over the past several months, which had saddened him a great deal. His oldest team member was so large and slow, and they were always on the run these days in hideouts with limited space.

That was all different, now. Gav released Onix's ball, took aim, and chucked it far. It sailed overhead and landed on the other side of the small pond, and a second later crimson bled out in an enormous, ever-growing shape. Katherine Broome sucked in a small gasp and Gav turned to look at her.

"Is this?" she asked, and he nodded. "Oh," she breathed out, her eyes going bright and misty. "It's been years since I've seen him." It took Gav a second to realize that, as a Pewter native, Mrs. Broome had likely encountered his grandfather's Onix at least once before.

Gav smiled as Onix lifted his craggy head, blinked around myopically, and settled low at once. His largest Rock-type sighed, perfectly content, and closed his eyes.

In keeping with the trend of giving newer team members some time out, Gav sent out Diglett next, but immediately regretted this. His Ground-type burrowed at once into the lawn and Gav's eyes popped wide. "Oh my god, your lawn—"

"No no, don't worry!" Mrs. Broome insisted on a laugh. "This is a training grounds too, it's meant to see some action!"

The three Champions had hung back to watch as the others released their Pokémon, but now Casey stepped forward. His Blastoise was the first out, and the large, dark blue Water-type turned to look automatically toward Amaris with interest, but Amaris hadn't released a single Pokémon yet. Lickitung appeared next, surveyed the landscape and decided it had found a kindred spirit in Venusaur. A second later the Normal-type flopped down on its back, round belly in the air, and Venusaur gave it an approving, lazy nod.

Tim's Krabby scuttled over to the pond to join Beth's still-shy Water-types, his Arcanine loped happily over to Kaylee's two dogs, and Gav saw her eldest lose the serious demeanor at once. They immediately began to play-spar and Kaylee's younger Arcanine whined, wanting in, but Gav got the distinct impression he'd be intruding if he joined.

Kabutops headed over his way, and Gav watched with interest, given the rare opportunity to study one up close. The creature's domed head was a gleaming, pleasant tan and shrewd eyes looked up at Gav, assessing him carefully. Kabutops seemed to see better when it looked at something from the side rather than head-on. When he walked he held his bladed arms back so as not to bump them with his knees.

Tim's final Pokémon was Hitmonlee, and Nick answered that at once with his Hitmonchan. The two Fighting-types squared off instantly; evidently there was a good-natured, persistent rivalry there. They traded blows with a kind of vicious, fast enthusiasm that would have been alarming save for the fact that neither trainer looked worried.

Nick's Fearow took off at once toward Jason's, and Jason stammered out, "Uh—I don't know if…" but Nick interjected.

"She'll be careful. I know how Fearows can be." He offered Jason a reassuring smile, but Jason still watched the two birds with a wary eye.

Gav glanced around the now populated field, but as jam-packed as it was now, he still got a lingering sense of emptiness from the sight. It took him a second to figure out why. Amaris, Zahlia and Orion had yet to release a single team member. Their Pokémon were conspicuous in their absence, and Gav saw he wasn't the only one casting them periodic, uncomfortable looks. He wondered if Zahlia was refraining from letting Gengar out because her single Pokémon was so often sad and quiet these days. The proceedings were sunny, lighthearted and happy, so perhaps she felt Gengar would be a downer.

A thought drifted through Gav's mind as his eyes slid to Orion's remote face. Had Zahlia actually come face-to-face with any of Orion's team members since Zeke's death? He somehow didn't think so, and suddenly Orion's choice to keep them at his belt made sense… even if Gav didn't agree.

Nick cleared his throat. "Hey, Amaris." Amaris glanced over at the Champ, teal eyes wary, but Nick just offered him a small smile. "Got your Exeggcute on you?"

Amaris paused for a second before asking, "Why?" It was a blunt, rude reply, but that was usual now. Amaris had warmed up to all three Champs a bit before, but he was only ever on a backslide these days.

Nick was unperturbed. "Because I've got something for you and Victoria."

Victoria, alerted to her name, glanced up from where she was rubbing down Gloom's leaves. "Oh?" she asked, frowning. Gav knew gifts would always make her a little uncomfortable.

Nick dug into the pocket of his trench and drew out two Leaf Stones, showing them to the trainers, palm up. Beth and Gina let out twin _oohs_ and moved closer.

Victoria's eyebrows snapped high, but after a faltering second of disbelief she stammered out a thank you and urged Gloom forward. Amaris, on the other hand, hesitated for almost a full minute. Victoria bought him some time with her questions for Nick and her typical back-and-forth agony over accepting something that had probably cost a lot of money. Gav watched the Initiate while this took place, trying not to look like he was staring. _Just take it,_ he silently urged him. _Think of your Pokémon, even if you don't want to play nice right now._

It was as if Amaris had heard him. He apparently couldn't bring himself to refuse this opportunity, and wordlessly, he reached for a ball at his belt.

Exeggcute was such a strange Pokémon. There were six creatures total and each had its own distinct personality. One was constantly smirking, one forever stern, one looked pissed off, one bored, one grinned slyly and shifted its beady eyes side to side, and one was actually missing a sizable chunk of its face but still retained one eye which peered out curiously from its face. It didn't ever seem to be in pain, which settled Gav's nerves a little. Some of the other faces bore hairline cracks too, probably the result of a rough life getting pelted with rocks in the Safari Zone.

Nick passed out the stones and Victoria leaned over to hold hers out to Gloom, while Amaris simply set his on the grass and gave his Pokémon its space. With a start, Gav realized something.

"Hey," he said, a laugh in his tone. "Last time this happened it was Victoria's Weepinbell and Amaris' Eevee."

"Evolution buddies for life!" Beth cried, clapping her hands.

Blake smirked her way. "Why am I picturing you spelling that with the number four and 'L-Y-F?'" he asked, but it was the last thing anyone said. The Pokémon had made contact with the stones.

At once each member of the Exeggcute team leapt together around the face that had touched the stone. Two of the eggs immediately cracked, but before Gav could do more than blanch and take in the startled cries around him, two feet emerged from within. It still turned his stomach a little, as evolution sometimes did, and he shifted his eyes to Gloom.

Victoria's Pokémon made way more sense. The coconut-looking seeds atop its head melded together and its old leaves darkened and fell away to make room for blossoming petals. Gloom's sad grimace slowly changed into a happier, more alert expression, and the Pokémon began to swell as if being slowly inflated. From very close by, Victreebel watched. Gav wasn't sure how he could tell, but he could—Victoria's other Grass-type was busting with pride.

Exeggcute had a torso now, and was shooting skyward. Leaves blossomed out from above the faces, and the three that remained reshuffled and began to transform. The smirking face took on a new look of dopey glee, the sly one adopted a softer smirk, and even the bored face started to smile a little. They looked to one another as if curious, and communicated nonverbally through blinks and silent, mouthed words.

Gav's eyes shifted over to Amaris' face, and he felt a small smile emerge on his own. Amaris was smiling for the first time since Pallet. It was a tiny thing, steeped in exhaustion and barely there, but it heartened Gav to see it.

He looked further down the line to Gina, and was unsurprised to note that she was watching Amaris rather than the evolutions as well. Her expression was a soft, vulnerable one, and Gav noted she wasn't smiling, not quite. It was almost as if the expression would require too much of her attention, and she was focusing all of it on her fellow Initiate now.

The day passed that way, the sun crawling across the sky in its steady, determined fashion. Venusaur drew steadily closer to Ivysaur, though Gav never actually spotted him moving. Victoria's newest Pokémon refused to sit, but didn't move away from Jason's encroaching starter, choosing instead to cast him curious, uncertain looks. The Fearows squabbled exactly once, then decided to coexist. They weren't friendly, but there was a tolerance that made Nick's Fearow comfortable enough to preen herself serenely. Tim's and Kaylee's Arcanines were still flirt-playing, but her younger one had found solace hanging out with Tim's Kabutops. Gina's Gyarados had been joined by Jason's, and it was hard to tell them apart as the two serpents pinwheeled through the air together. Ekans had finally come out of hiding but contented himself by wrapping around Diglett. The two Pokémon stuck together, watching the proceedings thoughtfully.

Amaris was quiet as ever, but spent time with his newly-evolved teammate. The Initiate ran his burn-scarred hands across Exeggutor's broad, emerald green leaves, and took it in turn to address each of his Pokémon's three faces. Casey recalled his Blastoise once it became clear Amaris wouldn't release his own. Gav wondered if Amaris had even thanked Nick for the evolution stone. He wouldn't be surprised at all if he hadn't.

Across the way his sister's laughter caught Gav's attention. It warmed him to hear her laugh that way, full-bodied, way too loud, not caring how it sounded. She'd had too little of it lately, and Gav watched, grinning, as Kaylee slugged Tim on the arm for something he'd said. Tim grinned down at her, arched an eyebrow and shrugged, which only made Kaylee slug him again. He pretended to have a broken arm and hung it uselessly down from his elbow where it sadly swayed back and forth, and Kaylee laughed so hard she was turning pink. A second later her younger Arcanine let loose a stream of fire way too close to a hedge row, and Kaylee shouted, " _hey! What did I tell you!?"_ and streaked off to address the fire hazard.

Like twin sharks, Nick and Casey closed in on either side of Tim out of nowhere. Nick nudged him with an elbow and Casey threw an arm around his shoulders, and even from a distance Gav could read the body language perfectly. He could guess what they were saying, even. _Eh? Eh, eh, eh?_ Casey mouthed, jabbing Tim in the ribs with his fist on each syllable. _What's this? Somebody's crushing on you, huh?_

Gav's smile downgraded into a melancholy, troubled quirk of his lips, and Victoria spoke up from his side. "So… you gonna, like… see to your older brother duties here and talk to Tim about Kaylee?"

Gav executed a huge double-take at Victoria, his thoughtful reverie shattered. " _Hell_ no," he said with feeling.

"What?!" Victoria demanded, her face pulling into an almost offended expression. "You chicken, stop sucking! Go talk to him!"

Gav lifted his hands. "No way, I'm so not that guy. I know, why don't you do it?" he suggested, already knowing it was no good. Victoria levelled a toxic look at him. "Honestly, I'm just—not good with—" He gestured feebly.

Victoria rolled her eyes at him so hard it looked painful. "Oh, my god. You man-sized baby. This is part of the older sibling contract. Go. Now."

She shoved Gav forward with surprising strength and he stumbled a little, fighting the childish urge to dig his heels into the earth and plant himself there. His internal groan was one for the record books, and what made it worse was that Nick spotted him drawing nearer and snatched Casey away by the back of his brilliant t-shirt. The other two Champs buggered off as if they'd teleported and left Tim high and dry for what they clearly knew was about to be an awkward discussion.

Tim, for his part, looked a little lost. He was still blinking in a bewildered fashion when Gav finally made his way over to him.

Lord, how was he supposed to breach this subject? Gav wound up just staring at Tim for a while, not even offering a greeting, and Tim stared right back, waiting for Gav to speak. Uncomfortable seconds crawled by.

Finally Tim started to say, "Is everything…?" but all at once Gav found a rush of inspiration.

"So, I usually don't do this kind of thing, and I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but my sister is crushing on you in a way that was obvious enough for me to notice. And that's pretty obvious. I'm hoping that means you already knew. If you didn't, I feel sort of like an enormous jackass now. Please don't treat her differently? But, just, you know… let her down easy. Alright?" Tim was just staring at Gav with wide eyes, apparently awash in the verbal onslaught, and Gav made the horrendous choice to slap him on the arm in a faux companionable way before he turned heel and departed. Tim didn't get the chance to say a word.

 _Okay, that was awful_ , Gav thought bitterly, eying Victoria with vehemence across the lawn. She seemed torn between horror and the struggle not to laugh. _Let it never be said I don't pull my weight in this family._ Kaylee went running back toward Tim from where her Arcanine had been subdued, and Gav doubled his speed so he could duck behind his Onix rather than watch her react to the no doubt weird look on Tim's face. Maybe if he was lucky Diglett would have pity on him and dig him a Gav-sized hole to hide in.


	5. Unseeing Eyes :Amaris:

Pokémon Azure

Chapter 5: Unseeing Eyes

(Amaris Drake)

"Oh, and Cloyster dodges! This has been a close match, folks—and it's certainly not over yet!"

"Right you are, Bruce! It's a clash of the titans the likes of which we haven't had the pleasure to see in some time! If you're just joining us now, viewers at home—and I don't know why you waited!—we're coming to you live from the Indigo Plateau Pokémon Stadium where the 2047 Pokémon League Championship Battle is well underway!"

Amaris shifted his eyes to the side, but a warbling cry brought him back, as did the collective gasp from his gathered friends. He had to admit, though not a lot grabbed his attention these days, the showdown between Nick and Tim was objectively an edge-of-the-seat nail biter. On the screen Tim ordered a Withdraw just in time. Nick's Porygon shot forward, its turret legs spinning wildly on either side. Its hard, jewel-cut nose landed a dragging scrape of deafening hits against Cloyster's shell. The announcers went, "ooh—ah," and Amaris smirked slightly. Even now he knew the sound-tech guys were scrambling to adjust the audio feed levels.

Cloyster spun wildly, knocking Porygon astray, but Porygon landed on its feet and shot forward again, still on the offensive. Cloyster opened its shell only long enough to fire off a wide, messy Aurora Beam which missed Porygon by a hair. The crowd gasped and the announcers crowed some more, but Amaris tuned them out.

The lineup had been Pinsir, Slowbro, Ninetails, Dugtrio, Electabuzz and Porygon for Nick and Muk, Tangela, Magneton, Onix, Pidgeot and Cloyster for Tim, and even though the two Champs had talked ahead of time about who would win this battle, no one was pulling punches today. Amaris had been concerned that it would look like Tim was obviously throwing the match, but his fears turned out to be unfounded. Either the Champs knew that would look suspicious, and were refraining, or it was simply impossible for them to not give it their all when they were pitted against each other.

Tim was down to his last useable Pokémon, and Nick nearly was as well, though he still had a poisoned Dugtrio left in his roster. Cloyster's next Spike Cannon hit, and the aggressive Porygon was forced to go on the defensive for the first time in the battle. It retreated, but got clipped by a Water Gun and answered with a sharp, sudden blast of Confusion. The attack physically slid Cloyster back several feet toward the edge of the stadium.

Nathan Fremont had deigned to come down and watch the match. Amaris noted he was in an oversized sweater today, and kept his hands firmly tucked out of sight in its front pockets. That did something to hide his current degenerated, emaciated state, but it couldn't mask the way his cheekbones were starting to show in sharp relief again. Anytime anyone looked at Fremont, he looked resolutely ahead, not even dignifying their attention with a returned glare. He spoke only to Mrs. Broome, and was always polite and civil with her, though Amaris noted with some relief that Tim's mother was astute enough to avoid prolonged conversation with him anyway.

Cloyster opened its shell to deliver an Ice Beam, a move that looked similar to Aurora Beam but could be told apart if one was looking for the right signs. Porygon answered the blast head-on with Tri Attack. This attack looked different according to which Pokémon used it. Amaris' Doduo would learn it when it evolved into a Dodrio one day, but he was sure his bird would not be emitting that three-sided burst of almost invisible energy. It would probably just peck its opponent with all three heads. Tri Attack and Aurora Beam met midway and burst, and the screen flickered and went grainy for a second.

That seemed to break the spell over the group somewhat. "Cloyster's gotten way better," Kaylee noted, pulling her legs up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them.

"Since when?" Gina asked, casting a look her way.

Kaylee exchanged a glance with Beth. "Well, I don't mean like, _recently,_ but we watched a video clip of Tim challenging this crazy dude with a Dragonite, in… what was it, 2041?"

"2041," Beth affirmed.

"Right, I think Cloyster might have been newly-evolved at that point, or something? But it took a pretty bad beating then. Not like today."

Casey, who had joined them for this televised match, scowled for a moment. The expression looked somehow wrong on the normally sunny Champ's face. "Ah," he said, flatly. "Owen McCarty. Yeah, I remember that asshole. He almost did jail time, but something slipped through the cracks and the SOB went free."

The fight was back on, and most people had tuned back into it, though Beth's attention lingered on Casey for one last question. "Did that other guy ever go to anger management? The one you punched."

Casey snorted. "Yeah, for a couple of weeks. Then he vanished. Sergio," he added. "I'll always remember that guy. I was pretty new to my Championship when that happened."

Amaris had seen this particular clip, and snagged Casey's attention from the Champ match one last time. "The Champ you were filmed with during that incident." To his annoyance, a fair number of people shot him surprised glances over their shoulders, as if he had been born mute and only now decided to grace them with the gift of his voice. Amaris ignored everyone but Casey. "Kadence Stephan."

Casey nodded, not appearing to need a question to go along with that. "Been thinking about her a lot, actually," he admitted. "She's always been real stand up. I know you guys don't want to expand right now, and that's understandable, but I'm kinda compiling a list of people we can trust in my head and… well, she's near the top."

Gav's interest could always be trusted to stray more toward business than pleasure, and now he pivoted on the floor so he could address Casey more fully. "Out of curiosity, who else is on that list?"

"Zayne Roberts," Casey replied without hesitation. "Couple others from the Hall of Fame. Though, it's worth mentioning that there are some Champs who don't make the list."

"Like?" Victoria asked, also pulled away from the match, where Cloyster and Porygon had moved into a close-quarters scuffle.

"MJ," Casey said. "I mean, I guess I don't have a… solid _reason_ she doesn't make the list, but… I dunno. It's a feeling."

"Trust those," Gav said, nodding thoughtfully.

"And I know the PLF would like us to 'see other people,'" Casey said sarcastically, "but I doubt that was Trentolds' idea. He's off the grid right now—not sure where—but whenever he emerges I get the feeling he'll reach out to Tim. Just a matter of time."

Amaris, Victoria and Gav nodded, and the three of them and Casey turned back to the screen just in time.

" _Ohh!"_ one of the announcers groaned. Porygon's Tackle was met with a wide opening of Cloyster's shell that its opponent had clearly not expected. Porygon tried to veer right at the last second, but Cloyster clamped down on it and an instant later the entire area around both Pokémon burst in a flurry of flying ice shards and snow. The condensed, contained Blizzard—which was what it had to be—didn't even stray to either trainer, but when the snow settled Porygon was sprawled flat.

It looked like it was over for a minute, and Amaris even experienced a brief surge of bewilderment—the point was for Tim to _lose,_ wasn't it? Then Porygon began to glow softly, and Amaris realized it a second before the announcers did.

" _Recover!_ That's a perfectly-timed move if ever I saw one!"

Cloyster blasted a Bubble Beam at Porygon, but Porygon cut straight through—and landed a high-speed strike straight into Cloyster's open shell. The Ice-type brayed and toppled backward, and at the bottom of the screen Tim's final Pokéball went dark.

The camera cut to Tim, always greedy for the losing party's expression, but he was just grinning, shaking his head and running a hand through his disheveled hair. He glanced up and gave Nick a shrewd, sly grin, and when the camera panned back to Nick, the new Champ returned it, then made like he was swiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. Both Pokémon were recalled in flashes of red, the Champs crossed to shake each other's hands, and the announcers went batshit.

"Now!" one of them said. "We need to get our ground crews moving fast if we want to get an interview with both Broome and Mentaro—Broome's known for— _oh no, there he goes!"_

The camera cut back just in time to see Tim rest his hand on his Jynx's shoulder, and a second later he was standing in their midst, displaced air ruffling through his Pokémon's long yellow hair. There were quite a few jumps and gasps, and Beth even gave a small shriek.

Jason stared at Tim with a slightly harrowed expression. "That's about the most disorienting thing ever. Watching someone on TV and a second later they're in your living room."

"Look at them!" Kaylee said to Tim, pointing at the screen. "They're in mourning." And indeed, the announcers were lamenting the loss of a now-rare opportunity to get both Champs together for an interview and press coverage. They had swarmed Nick in the interim, and Amaris couldn't be sure, but he thought maybe Nick was giving the camera and their living room a playfully dirty look, like Tim had abandoned him.

Gav got to his feet, stretching his leg a little as he did. "Well, not to rush along, but Alana will be here any minute." The gathered group sighed and took their time getting to their feet, turning the TV off, and gathering their cups and dishes. Amaris supposed that, to them, the battle had been a nice break from work. To him it had been nothing more than a brief and ineffective distraction.

Their gathering place for the final of Alana's detox shots would be the greenhouse. Some of their number were giving this event a lot more pomp and circumstance than Amaris personally felt it deserved. Each GIZMO interview of their teams had revealed no change in behavior, sudden onset of physical ailments, or any other troubling side effect. In fact, it was such a strangely subtle process that Amaris wondered if it was even working. After all, their Pokémon were the "beta testers" of this serum.

Amaris ran his hand over the balls at his belt, counting his primary team members there on autopilot. The pang of guilt he experienced over the fact that he only ever saw his Pokémon during these detox sessions flicked in and out of his mind on rapid, fluttering wings. He followed the others down the hall.

Alana arrived right on time, escorted this time by Alan Zachariah, as Casey was already among their number and Nick was tied up at the League. Amaris noted two things, peripherally. First, Alana didn't tense and dart her eyes around upon teleporting in the way she had when they were stationed at the Power Plant. And two, as always, she locked eyes with him first, scanned his face as if for an outward sign of injury, and then resolutely looked anywhere but him while she set up. She had another new large case with her and Amaris wondered if it could possibly contain more chemical-free balls.

Amaris frowned when an unfamiliar Electric-type emerged onto the field to his left. He hadn't seen who released it and glanced around at the trainers in its immediate proximity, trying to gauge who had been the most likely one of them to somehow recruit it. It looked like it was either Kaylee, Beth or Jason, and even though Amaris knew the two girls to be strictly devoted to their type preferences, it had to be one of them. Jason would never allow an Electric-type onto his belt.

Amaris wasn't the only one who had spotted the newcomer. Alana and Zachariah both turned to it, curious. "Is that, um, Mr. Fremont's?" Alana asked, glancing around once more to confirm that Jason's father wasn't on the field.

Kaylee and Beth cast one another a brief look, then glanced at Jason. Jason hesitated for only a second before he answered, gruffly, "No. It's mine."

"But you…" Alana asked, frowning. "Did you… um. Will this one have to be detoxed from the ground up?" she finally asked.

Jason shot her a sharp look. "Of course not. I'm never using a Silph ball again."

Alana put a hand up to placate him, and nodded. "Okay. Just needed to ask. But then…" she trailed off. "How did you… catch it?"

Now it was more than just Beth, Kaylee, Alana and Zachariah listening in. Almost everyone was paying attention and Jason looked like he was struggling with all his might not to squirm. "Old-fashioned way," he said bluntly. "Spent lots of time fighting it anyway. It was aggressive. Wore it down eventually, I guess. It joined me because it wanted to."

The Voltorb apparently knew it was being talked about, and sank lower to the grass, swaying back and forth by Jason's feet in a testy, prickly way. Jason glanced down at it, unimpressed. "Yeah. It was a whole lot of this. But it's gotten a lot better."

Alana opened her mouth to speak, closed it, then opened it again. When she closed it a second time, Jason said, "Okay, seriously. What's going on?" like he was worried he'd done something wrong.

"No, no," Alana assured him. "It's just this… well, frankly, this is amazing. I won't go anywhere near your new team member yet. It'll take time for it to even warm up to you." Still, she watched the Voltorb with keen interest. "This is sort of what I'd always imagined. It's a pipe dream, and a far off one at that, but if Kanto can somehow rid itself of its dependence on Silph balls, _this_ is what the face of training is going to look like." She pulled a clipboard from the rolling cart, which lived in the greenhouse now. "In my downtime I've been doing research into what sort of techniques would work best for, ah… 'diplomatically convincing a Pokémon to join you.'"

Casey's eyebrows arched. "Downtime?" he asked, flabbergasted. "You have _downtime_?"

Alana gave him a wan, fond smile. "I have to have a hobby, or I'll start eating the wallpaper."

While Alana scribbled away on her clipboard Amaris stared over at Jason's Voltorb. It was hard to believe that right now, in their midst, was what was truly and technically a wild Pokémon. It had not been introduced to a Silph ball ever in its life, unless some other enterprising trainer had tried and failed to capture it before. Yet, instead of trying to flee or harm them, the most it was doing was rattling quietly in the grass as if daring anyone but Jason to get close to it.

Amaris lifted his eyes to study Jason's face. The younger Fremont brother was staring down at his newest Pokémon with a clearly ambivalent look, so Amaris could stare at him in peace. For all the things Jason was, good and bad, Amaris had long ago had to accept that he was a rather remarkable trainer. It was hard to remember that when he and the other Initiate went head-to-head, but at times like this it was impossible to forget.

"Anybody feel special today?" Alana finally asked, stowing her clipboard away.

Kaylee cottoned on to her meaning quickest. "I feel like we should give our Pokémon graduation caps or something. Though really, the curriculum wasn't that hard."

Blake snorted. "If our human schooling had been as simple as answering the same three questions every two weeks and getting shots, I'd have done a lot better."

"Not me," Gina said. "I hate shots." Amaris noted that, though her words were joking, her tone was tense and her face hard and set in an expression of worry she probably didn't realize she was pulling.

Amaris sighed. Gina still persisted that there was a chance that Charizard would suddenly and violently decide that he hated her upon receiving his final injection. If no one else had stepped up to the plate, Amaris would have mentioned it to her, but he didn't have to—virtually every single other member of their group assured her over and over that, if Charizard was going to start showing worrisome signs they would have popped up by now. Still, Gina's expression was somewhere between expectant father in the delivery room and murderer waiting to hear if they'd be serving life or getting the chair. It would have been funny in another life.

The field in the middle of Mrs. Broome's greenhouse was spacious, but even so, the sheer number of Pokémon they had to release bogged it down a little. In the Power Plant they'd had to send certain members of their team away into other corridors to stop from jamming up the traffic immediately around the GIZMO and the injection station. Here, at least, everyone could coexist without too much bumping and jostling.

Still, it was crowded and noisy, and Amaris backed himself off to the periphery. He didn't know how to feel when Blastoise joined him, seating his big, blue bulk down with a thud to Amaris' right. His starter and he had had an all-business relationship for most of the first part of his Master Journey. There were times Amaris wondered if his Pokémon had longed for a fluffier, cuddlier relationship, like the one Jason and Gina had with their teams.

Right now Nathan Fremont's youngest son was sitting through the final detox with Venusaur. Amaris and Blastoise watched as Alana hooked Venusaur up to the device and asked the standard three questions plus an offer for additional commentary.

"No muscle cramps or numbness?"

"I have a crick in my neck. I'd love a massage. … Just kidding. Your puny human hands couldn't even dig hard enough to register."

Alana lowered her face and laughed, shaking her head. "No sudden changes in mood?"

"I've been happier, because this place is awesome," Venusaur's robotic voice attested from the speaker. "Other than that, no."

"Anything else you want to bring to our attention?"

"Thank you," Venusaur said, out of the blue. "I knew the professor," his modulated voice elaborated. The Grass-type's fuchsia eyes shifted briefly over to Amaris, who felt a sudden, constricting strangle in his throat and a spotlight flare to life above his head. "He used to talk to us a lot while he was prepping us for… uh, distribution." Venusaur tilted his head to the side at that word. "We couldn't answer, but it was clear this whole thing meant a lot to him." Venusaur nudged his nose toward the GIZMO. "Being able to talk to them," he said, releasing a vine and pointing at Jason, "is pretty damned cool."

Alana looked entirely taken aback, very touched, and a little misty-eyed. Amaris could tell that even from a distance. She paused for a second before stammering out a, "Thank you, that means a lot. And…" She sucked in a breath, held it, then let it out in a rush. "Okay, I can't wait." She strode over to her crate, popped the lid open, and rummaged inside. Some of their group gathered around her like kids peering into Santa's toy sack. Alana removed and distributed what looked like flat plastic packages, each about the size of a letter and perhaps an inch thick.

"Fan mail?" Blake asked, taking six from Alana.

"These are portable GIZMOs," she said, tearing a package open and walking over to Venusaur. He obligingly lowered his head while she undid the electrodes that hooked him up to the main GIZMO. "I tested them out on a bunch of different Pokémon in the Center, but if you encounter any glitches let me know. I can come back and troubleshoot." She removed what looked like a flat disc of wire mesh about the size of her palm and flipped it over. "The adhesive was an issue, since obviously we don't want these to be single use, but I managed to find a way to make just the sticky parts removable. Replacements are in the box." She demonstrated by removing a white ring from the bottom of the mesh disc, then clasping it back into place. Finally she peeled off a thin sheaf of waxy paper from the white ring, and without further ado, slapped it onto Venusaur's temple.

Venusaur blinked at her. Alana reached up and flicked a switch—or what Amaris assumed was a switch from this distance. There was that familiar, quick little pop, a gentle hum like the volume was up too high, and Alana toggled a wheel on the other side until the sound disappeared.

"Okay! Let's hear it," she said to Venusaur.

After a faltering pause, the Grass-type said, "See, I was gonna spout a bunch of gibberish again to make you think it wasn't working, but I already used up singularity pancake. I got nothing."

The group issued forth tiny gasps of delight, some scooting forward, but most rushing to rip the packaging open on their own devices. Blake passed out more to those who weren't close enough to the crate to reach, all while counting the six she'd given him. "These can't all be for me."

Alana frowned. "No, they are." She counted off on her fingers. "Grumpy, Farfetch'D, Golbat, your _other_ Golbat, Fearow, and Venomoth. That's a full roster of six, isn't it?"

Blake opened his mouth to argue, then closed it. "… Well, damn," he said, blinking down at the packages. "I guess it is."

"Way to keep track of your team," Kaylee teased, already negotiating one of her Arcanine's furry heads to establish a solid connection for the device.

"Not intended for extended use," Alana added, "but they're definitely reusable. Oh, and waterproof."

"Have I told you lately that I love you?" Beth sighed dreamily from where she was working with her own team by the pond.

Amaris could tell that the field would soon degenerate into a steady, buzzing hum of people talk and robotic Pokémon jabber. He didn't know how to feel about that. On one hand, it was undeniably cool. On the other, the idea of that much noise and chatter made his chest feel tight.

Blake passed by and chucked six envelopes at Amaris' lap before strolling away. Amaris lifted a package and regarded it before turning to Blastoise. He wondered what, if anything, his starter would have to say about how things had been going for them lately.

Blastoise looked back at Amaris with even, calm brown eyes and blinked once, slowly. Amaris had read in a book on training once that that sort of extended, slow blink was a sign of trust. He wasn't sure if that was a load of crap or not.

They finished hooking their Pokémon up to the portable GIZMOs and continued with the detoxing in stages. No matter how many Pokémon went through the last shot and didn't suddenly go savage and start tearing into their trainers with their teeth and claws, it didn't seem to make a difference to Gina's visible levels of anxiety. What didn't help was that Charizard was always among the last to get his shot based on whatever seemingly arbitrary order Alana had set up for them. By the time Gina moved forward with Charizard, who was wearing his GIZMO speaker proudly on his head, she looked ready to pass out from nerves.

Charizard gave her an affectionately scathing look that Amaris couldn't have delivered better himself, and proceeded to answer Alana's questions in his usual fashion—cocksure, with just a touch of snark.

"No sudden changes in mood?"

"I'm experiencing an upsurge in irritation right now, yes," Charizard said, rolling his teal eyes. "Because _somebody_ here seems to think over three years of companionship can be erased by a chemical."

"No," Gina said, though she was still clenching and unclenching her fists at her sides. "It's not that, it's not that I don't trust you."

"I'm in an interview now," Charizard said archly, and Gina shot him a glare.

Alana uncomfortably wrapped up, and Charizard's reply to, "Anything else you want to bring to our attention?" was a short, "Inject me and I'll answer that."

Alana moved forward with the last syringe and Gina crossed her arms, flattened her hands against her ribs, and pressed down hard against them with her elbows.

Alana finished up, and Charizard stared at Gina for a long, unbroken moment. Just when the tension was about to reach breaking point, he said, "Lo. I am suddenly seized with an irrational, deep-seeded hatred for the ridiculous girl who put up with my shit for years, saw me through two evolutions and knows me better than anyone else in the world." He tore his eyes away from Gina to regard Alana. "Looks like she was right all along. Make haste, for I must be restrained."

A startling sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh tore free from Gina's throat. She ran at her starter, who pretended like he didn't want a hug for about ten seconds. Then he lowered his head so she could get her arms around his neck.

A fiery, sharp-edged thing ached its way to life somewhere around Amaris' diaphragm. He had to look away. He wasn't sure if it was the bond between trainer and Pokémon, or something more Gina-specific that had coaxed the feeling into being. All he knew was he didn't have the energy to analyze it right now.

Blastoise, who had remained staunchly quiet while the proceedings took place, studied Amaris thoughtfully for a second before saying, "I would whisper something covertly to you, but I don't think this machine has any volume nuance. Can you turn my wheel down?"

Amaris glanced up at Blastoise, but did as he asked, standing up and stretching to reach the GIZMO while his starter crouched a little. He probably needn't have lowered the volume at all—everyone was in their own little world, talking to their Pokémon and knowing they had no time limit now.

Blastoise stared at Amaris evenly and let the silence drag between them in a way that made Amaris feel strangely young and vulnerable. "I want you to let me out more often," he said. "Not because I'm bored. I don't mind the ball. Never have. But you need company, and for some reason that's beyond me, you aren't going to Gina for it anymore."

Amaris snapped his eyes back up to Blastoise, blinking rapidly. "I'm fine," he said, and Blastoise huffed out a sigh that cut off part of Amaris' short reply.

"If you really think that fools me, I'm offended. You trained me to think for myself, and challenge and question you when I see fit. You don't get to pick and choose when I do that."

Amaris opened his mouth to argue, but couldn't think of a single thing to say. Blastoise, looking entirely too pleased with himself, lumbered away before Amaris could gather himself. Amaris watched his starter go to convene with Charizard, who was bemoaning Gina's continued fawning, and wondered when his first Pokémon had saw fit to start treating Amaris like a little brother he had to look out for.

Amaris kept waiting for himself to pull Blastoise's ball off his belt and return his Water-type when the group split off to do individual training. He waited to come to his senses and put his starter in his place when, after that, it was decided that dinner would be had on the lawn. By the time night fell he realized it wasn't going to happen.

As little as he liked to admit it, Blastoise had been exactly right. Self-imposed or no, Amaris' solitude had matured into a genuine, deep loneliness.

* * *

Amaris didn't have nightmares, and felt like a horrible person because of it. Waking in a cold sweat each night with the burning wreck of Pallet's wall stamped fresh behind his eyelids would have been the decent thing to do. Sleep was a blank slate for Amaris in a way it had never been before, a comfort of warm, dark emptiness that ate up large chunks of the time he would have normally spent hating himself. It was hard to hate yourself when you were wrapped up in nothingness and felt like no one at all.

So Amaris had no idea why, tonight, he couldn't sleep. The return of the insomnia that had plagued him for the past several years was not welcome. He had finally returned Blastoise to his ball about a quarter past midnight. It was going on three in the morning now, and the most rest he'd managed was a kind of fifteen minute, prolonged blink. It was ruined somewhat by the tension lacing his entire body.

Amaris got up in a sudden, stabbing motion, swung his feet to the floor, and threw his covers off. He was never one for exercises in futility. If he wasn't going to sleep, he might as well do something else.

A place this big always seemed to run cold, especially at night, although it was summertime. Amaris slipped socks on before descending the stairs into the living room. The expansive first floor of the secondary Broome household gave the impression of a disused, slightly haunted ballroom. The fireplace to the left peered out at him, dark and cold as a searching eye. The couches, chairs and beanbags that seemed so inviting by the light of day now just looked abandoned and forlorn.

Amaris was contemplating a trip to the kitchen, as he'd skipped dinner, when movement flashed in the corner of his eye. He spun, released Blastoise's Pokéball from the belt he was never without these days, and stared at the figure that had risen, previously unseen, from one of the beanbags. Whoever it was had to have heard him jump, but they made no sign of reacting.

Amaris squinted through the dim space between them, gathering visual data. Tall, dark hair, male—and after a faltering few seconds he recognized the person. His shoulders sagged and he lifted a hand to rub hard at his face.

"Blake," he said, his tones harsh and clipped. "You scared the life out of me, what are you doing?"

But Blake didn't answer. Amaris stared at him harder, a strange blend of irritated worry in his gut, and sharply closed the distance between them. "Blake," he said again as he drew closer, but once again Zahlia's brother didn't respond. He wondered if there was a history of sleepwalking in the Nakawa family.

Amaris rounded his side, reached out to shake him, but never even got to touch his hand down on Blake's shoulder.

Blake's large, dark, unseeing eyes snapped to Amaris' face and his pale hand shot out to slap Amaris' away. Amaris took a fumbling step back, on his guard again, but what Blake said next made absolutely no sense.

"Assemble a team and sweep Site A."

"What?" Amaris asked, taking another half-step back to get a wider perspective on what was rapidly degenerating into something bizarre. He half expected to see someone pulling strings above Blake's head like a giant puppeteer.

Blake spoke again, his voice eerily flat, like he was reading lines from a cue card someone was forcing him to perform. And yet, as Amaris watched, the flat words didn't match the expression on Blake's face. Blake was staring at him as if he could genuinely see him, and his expression was one of muted, cold, deep disdain.

When he added, "As soon as possible," Amaris raised his voice.

"You aren't making any sense, snap out of it!"

"Amaris?" a voice called from the hallway to the greenhouses. Amaris snapped his head to the right, quickly, just long enough to confirm the newcomer was Zahlia. Then he switched his attention back to her little brother.

"There's something wrong with Blake," he informed her. "He's spouting gibberish, isn't answering me."

He could practically feel the alarmed tension that pulsed out like sonar from where Zahlia stood behind him. In a flash the eldest Nakawa was beside them, reaching out for her brother. "Wouldn't do that if I were you," Amaris said. "He slapped me away when I tried."

Zahlia paused, and Blake took half a step back, turning to face her instead. "Yes, Site A. The place my son found."

Zahlia's face twisted into an expression of perfect, uncomprehending confusion for just an instant. Then the look crystallized and shattered to be replaced by an underlying, bone-deep dread.

"What?" Amaris asked, tension scoring down his spine.

Blake, however, was done. Amaris could see it, pinpoint the exact moment he came back. It wasn't accompanied by a dramatic shudder or startled gasp. Blake simply slumped back into his usual, slouchy posture, his head nodding forward onto his chest for a second before he blinked and lifted his chin back up. For a second, Blake just blinked at the space between Amaris and Zahlia, gathering himself. Then his normally inexpressive face morphed into a look of deep, displeased distaste and a harrowed, resigned acceptance.

"Blake?" Zahlia asked, as if prompting him to share whether an illness was terminal.

"We need to call a team meeting," Blake said, flatly. He was already on the move to the stairwell when Amaris and Zahlia snapped out of their reverie. "Now. Like, _right_ now."


	6. Sometimes They Fall :Blake:

Pokémon Azure

Chapter 6: Sometimes They Fall

(Blake Nakawa)

"Why the fuck didn't you tell us?"

Blake didn't waste any time replying. He knew any pause while he tried to think of the best reply would only inflame this situation further. "I'd really hoped it was a one-off. Leftover… um. Impressions, maybe." He sucked in a short, fortifying breath. "From…" But he let the last part of his sentence out on a sigh instead, along with a simple, "yeah."

An unspoken ripple crossed over their group, and Blake knew that they were all on the same page. Zeke.

In the harrowed silence of their emergency late-night meeting, Blake's eyes found Zahlia. She was stricken in that way that wasn't always easy to pinpoint, but was still painfully obvious to those who knew her. A few people down from her, Orion was pale.

Gav rested his forehead in his hands for one, faltering moment, drawing in an uncharacteristically shaky breath that made Blake uncomfortable to hear. But, of course, when he spoke his voice was level again. "One more time. What did you see?"

Blake frowned, unable to help himself. The "Dream Eater link" had been fairly simple, but he didn't question Gav's request to hear it again. "Vaughn was telling some guy I didn't know to 'go to site A.' I don't know what that means, of course, but…"

"'The place my son found,'" Gav repeated, softly, and for a second Blake was irked. If he could remember those words so clearly, why did he need Blake to repeat himself? A second later he realized what was really going on. Gav was struggling hard against the kind of scatter-brained exhaustion that made a fully-formed thought evaporate as easily as a water speck on a stovetop. He needed a memory jog. Blake found the idea of Gav of all people being that out of sorts distinctly disturbing.

"Brainstorming time," Victoria cut in cooly, though her voice was tight with weariness. "Site A. What do we think this means?"

"A comes before B," Beth said dully.

"… Astute," Amaris said, like he was waiting for a punchline.

Beth managed half a smile. "Not like that, sorry. I only meant, it comes first. It's probably the first site of its kind, or at least the most important."

A wave of shallow nods drifted around the room, this theory generally accepted. The light in Katherine Broome's large living room felt too harsh and bright when all they could see out the cracks in the blinds was pitch blackness. The fact that the rest of Pewter was probably sound asleep while they were calculating risk and piecing together dangerous clues made the whole gathering feel absolutely surreal.

"Should we be egotistical, here?" Jason asked, breaking the thoughtful silence. Many heads turned to face him and he tilted his chin up first, but his eyes were a little late to the party, still locked on some point he'd chosen to stare at while lost in thought. When he finally snapped his tired, but strangely bright blue eyes up to look at the rest of them, he was grim. "Assume that Nakawa is tracking us?"

The quality of the silence became prickly and uncomfortable, but Kaylee spoke up to break it quickly. "That's a safe assumption at this point. We can't be his only enemies, but we've caused a—lot of trouble." Blake got the impression she'd censored herself from using a colorful adjective there.

Gina let out a large sigh at the same point Tim started to speak. "I think—" He paused though, looking to Gina to see if the sigh had been a prelude to speech, but she shook her head.

"Go on," she insisted.

"I was just going to say… stands to reason if he's talking about you guys that 'Site A' would be Edith's cottage. It was your home base."

It felt like the room itself let out a defeated, slow breath. In his mind's eye Blake pictured a stereotypical map of Kanto replete with pushpins and red string tying each point of interest together. How many people were currently working on tracking them, either directly or indirectly? Did they keep spreadsheets, accordion files of paper like the ones their own group maintained about the syndicate? Was there an office assistant in the Department of Scheming, Stalking and Attempted Murder?

For a second it almost felt like Backburner Blake was back, but then the feeble, hollow train of thought vanished. He couldn't be sure, but he suspected most of their number were thinking about Edith, maybe lost in a memory of the sunlit days they'd spent in her company and at her "safe" house, the recollections now tainted with dark, uncertain shadows. How long were they tracked for? Which funny or meaningful scenes had played out with Zeke watching from the cover of the tall trees? Where was their erstwhile hostess now?

As one, the group switched gears on the turn of a pin. "Close the link," Amaris directed.

"Uh," Blake said, taken aback. Before he could sass Amaris out of existence, Kaylee interjected.

"But… I mean, okay, don't get me wrong, but… if we keep it open, we can _see_ what Nakawa is doing. That's not nothing—that's useful. That could be life-saving."

"It's not predictable," Amaris pointed out, at the same time Victoria snapped, "It's not safe."

"That's my worry, too," Zahlia finally said, speaking up quietly from Tim's elbow and almost getting drowned out as Kaylee tried to argue her point back to the redheads. "If it _is_ a Dream Eater link, and we have no reason to think it's anything else, that means it's a two-way feed."

Kaylee grimaced, but fell silent, and Tim sighed and nodded. "You're right. We have to close it."

Blake rolled his eyes hard. "Yeah, fine and dandy. Tell that to Gengar."

So they tried to tell that to Gengar. Zahlia let out her Pokémon and, one by one, virtually everyone gathered took their turn to try to impress upon the distracted creature the severity of the situation at hand. For the first time since his evolution, Gengar seemed a little bit like the Haunter he'd left behind. He wasn't performing loop-de-loops or laughing, but he was displaying that admirable ADD just fine. His red eyes would slide away from each face in turn, a frown lingering there as Gengar seemed to decide that something only he could hear was far more important and worthy of attention. Blake had accepted it long before the others gave up: they could talk at Gengar until they were blue in the face, but it wouldn't make any difference.

It was a dejected, fed up bunch that parted ways some hour later. Blake tried his best to earnestly listen to the advice thrust upon him from every side: _try not to think about Nakawa, that might aggravate it—borrow Clefable or Poliwrath, have them put you to sleep with their Pokémon moves, maybe you'll dream less—come to us the instant you get any other flashes of insight, even if you're not sure they're real—_

Blake was only too happy to get the hell out of the living room after he'd been talked at for upwards of five minutes straight during his attempt to flee. The group had another useless meeting under their belts. They never seemed to get anything done anymore these days.

Blake felt eyes on the back of his head as he mounted the stairs to get to his room on the second floor. His feet were freezing; he hadn't realized it until now. It was barreling toward summer but that didn't mean a thing in the middle of the night walking around barefoot on hardwood floors.

If the world made any sense whatsoever Blake would have crawled into bed, dejected and frustrated, but exhausted, and would have been asleep in minutes. The day was over, the meeting was adjourned—it felt so much like the ending of all the excitement that he never dreamed another vision was coming. It sucked him in like a sinkhole disguised as a shallow puddle of rainwater.

* * *

 _"No," Vaughn says, a period at the end of Azakawa's rambling sentence. The momentum and frantic energy of the other man's words die like his powerlines have been cut. "Replacing Anderton and Mason this late in the game is an inefficiency we cannot afford. I've already considered and dismissed the idea of taking them out of the equation permanently. The solution is to rope them back into the fold—after reconditioning."_

 _Azakawa is dead silent, not daring to speak after being cut off in such a definite way. Vaughn allows himself to drift into his thoughts for a moment, but it does not last long. Overthinking benefits no one._

 _"Perhaps shaking down Pallet wasn't such a terrible idea. It got results; it stopped their 'work.' If you don't find anything after your next sweep of Site A, stir the pot again."_

 _For just a second, there it is—the weakness, the doubt that graces even his most zealous employees. Azakawa balks, just a touch, at the idea of what Vaughn is asking him to authorize. Vaughn locks eyes with him, holds his gaze for a long, drawn-out beat, and smiles._

 _"See what happens."_

* * *

Blake came back to himself with his eyes burning and screaming, having been open the entire time and staring blankly at nothing, but that was the absolute least of his worries.

 _Son of a bitch._ Before the thought even had a chance to fully germinate, Blake had turned and was running back down the stairs. _They're going to hit Pallet again._

Not a single person was still in the process of shuffling off to bed when Blake burst back into the living room from the stairwell. Each member of their group was finely-tuned to tension and heightened emotion, able to radio in to the frequency of oncoming bad news like they came with antennae installed. Blake only took a second to suck in a ragged breath before he blurted it out. "'Nother vision. Vaughn talking to Azakawa this time. They want to hit Pallet again. Think it'll get us to act." There was an explosion of sound, but Blake jerked his hand up and, like a conductor, brought the whole room to as sudden a hush as Vaughn had brought to the rambling Azakawa. The parallel made his skin crawl. "The hit'll happen if—if Azakawa's people don't find anything interesting at Site A. When they do their next sweep."

The room seemed to realize as one that he was done, and questions erupted over one another in incomprehensible layers. Blake shook his head, throwing his hands out, palms up, as if to ask them what they really expected him to do with that much babble.

Victoria whistled in a harsh, grating shrill. "Amaris, go," she said, picking the first person to ask a question at seeming random.

"When are they doing the sweep?" Amaris asked at once.

"Didn't say," Blake said, and resisted the urge to shout out, _next!_

Victoria pointed to Kaylee, who blurted out, "Who's 'they'? "Not Azakawa, it's got to be some people he's in charge of?"

"Didn't say," Blake said again, already feeling the pit growing in his stomach. There was going to be a trend here, he could tell. He'd given them everything in those few rushed sentences and had no other insight.

Tim got the next one. "They want us to act—they're trying to draw us out? That's the impression you got?"

"Definitely," Blake said. "I believe the exact words Nakawa used were—were 'stir the pot. See what happens.'" A cold, crawling hush fell over the room.

Gina had the next query. "They didn't say what they plan to do to Pallet…?" she asked, her voice almost gone.

Blake grimaced. "No," he said, offering it as an apology, like it was somehow his fault he couldn't emerge from these visions with the syndicate's annual report and itemized budget in hand.

"Fuck," said Jason, out of turn, but it didn't matter anymore. The well of questions had run dry.

Not a second later, though, Blake realized with a lurch that he hadn't actually given them everything from the vision. He'd blurted out the most important piece of information, but in the harrowing silence another detail emerged from his short-term memory. "Also. Vaughn was saying something about Anderton and Mason. About how, what did he say. It's 'too late to take them out of the game permanently' even though he'd considered it. He… he wants to return them to the fold. Um, after 'reconditioning.'"

"Reconditioning?" Kaylee and Orion asked together.

"That's all he said," Blake replied hollowly. "It sounds like some kind of brainwashing bootcamp if you ask me, but he… didn't expand."

"We—" Gav said, but cut himself off. The others all turned to look at him while he gathered his thoughts. "We don't… have a choice. We've got to intervene before they decide to call that hit, somehow. We need… to at least prove that we aren't in Pallet anymore."

Beth added, quietly, "And make an appearance before they decide to force our hand."

Blake was sure he wasn't the only member of their group who had been agitated to the point of near-insanity during their exile in the Power Plant, where they'd had nothing to do and no one to fight. Now, with the knowledge they were going to actively seek out their enemies for a face-to-face confrontation, Blake couldn't help but nod, wryly, to the fact that the grass was always greener on the other side.

* * *

Blake had no future in the thespian arts. He'd always suspected as much, but that fact was only cemented over the next several excruciating days. Granted, his acting skills didn't exactly have a chance to bloom in full when the stage upon which he performed was the wreckage of Edith's cottage, and the audience wanted to kill him.

The plan of action had taken many hours and considerable disagreement before it finally solidified into something applicable. Their first plan had been for everyone to go to the cottage together, camp near the outskirts, and wait. Almost immediately that idea had been shot full of holes: it was too obvious, suspicious, even, for them to be hanging around Edith's in a big group, doing seemingly nothing. Opponents of abandoning the idea worried that they'd be vulnerable if they weren't all together, but there was no getting around it. In the end they'd decided to split up their shifts in pairs, dive straight into the wreckage of the cottage, and behave like they were trying to, covertly, dig through the rubble to extract something important they'd left behind. The pairs would keep this up for about four hours at a time, then swap themselves out with another pair. If at any point in time trouble arrived, Tim's Jynx and Gengar, both watching and invisible in Gengar's shadow, would teleport back to Pewter to gather up the others as backup. It was not a perfect plan by any stretch, but it was the only one that didn't seem to lead in a beeline to immediate failure.

Blake and Tim had the 6-10pm shift tonight, and in another seventeen minutes they would sigh, look to each other as if disappointed, and place a fake phone call to the others, for the benefit of anyone watching. They'd report they hadn't found "it" and were coming home.

Blake had, at first, thought it a little weird that he was paired with Tim, but he quickly deduced why that was. Blake only had Grumpy, Farfetch'D and his still-erratic Golbat to his name, as Zeke's other Pokémon were still being rehabilitated. It made sense to pair his lackluster roster with Tim's much larger one. The other pairs went like that, too: Zahlia with Jason, Kaylee with Amaris, Victoria with Gina. None of them were defenseless anymore, by any stretch, but it helped to have those with fewer team members grouped with those who at least had a full and active roster of six.

Blake's movements felt clunky and awkward, exactly like he was exaggerating every motion for the benefit of a camera. He tried to act naturally, but caught himself picking up things that were absolutely ordinary and turning them over and over in his hands like this shattered teapot might be the thing they had come back and risked their lives to retrieve. His only consolation was that Tim wasn't doing much better. He was so tense where he crouched near the wrecked fluff of the sofa that Blake could easily picture him leaping to his feet and deploying his team at the snap of a twig. At least they looked nervous; it made sense for them to be. They were insane for having returned here, and were acting the part.

They heard it a mere five minutes before they were supposed to leave. Blake had only just managed to take up a book and flip through it, like he was searching for a note slipped between the pages, when a cracking rustle sounded from the line of trees to his left. He froze, and felt more than saw Tim freeze the same way from the corner of his eye. There were differences between Pokémon sounds and people sounds. Zahlia had taught him a few of the tricks she'd picked up over her years of early-morning training in the thick of whatever forest she could find. Pokémon sounds were usually steady and unbroken, a rustle followed by an accompanying crunch farther down the way, or a longer series of scraping sounds from within a tall tree. When Pokémon made sounds it meant they felt safe to do so, and had no reason to freeze right after they'd stepped across a twig. When a human who did not want to be detected accidentally made a noise, it was abrupt, quick, and followed by calculated, protracted silence. That was the exact quality of the noise they had just heard.

Tim and Blake exchanged a brief, calculating look, before nodding to each other once. Tim said, in a louder, carrying voice, "Sure wish more people were here to help us look," and Blake knew that was the cue for Gengar and Jynx to silently vanish and start bringing the others back.

"Mm," he replied to Tim noncommittally, purely because it might look weird if he didn't respond. He sent a text to Zahlia from waist-height, concealing the phone the best he could with his book. _Someone in the woods. 11:00 from the front door._

He glanced into the mostly-intact, but sagging hallway of Edith's cottage and was rewarded with the sight of Gina, Jason, Amaris and Orion teleporting into the dark shadows of two half-collapsed doorways. Blake went back to messing with the book in his hands, not wanting to give away their position if the person in the trees was watching. Out of the corner of his eye he saw four more people arrive. They would be the Harrison and Larson siblings. Zahlia was the only one who would not be teleported into the cottage. Now that he'd given her the information about what they'd heard, she would be delivered into the top of one of the tall trees surrounding the property, and her Gengar would be sent forward as a scout.

Blake roamed out into the grassy area around the cottage as if he needed to stretch his legs. Nature had reclaimed the lawn, once ruined, muddy and burned from the vicious fight they'd had with Zeke there. Tall grass rustled against Blake's dark cargoes as he made his way in a meandering fashion toward the treeline, marking for the others where they'd heard the sound. Every nerve in his body was singing a starsong of utmost tension.

When Gengar appeared smack-dab in front of Blake, he froze. That wasn't part of the plan at all, and against his will Blake opened his mouth to hiss out a reprimand to Zahlia's unpredictable ghost.

Then Gengar's face split into a gigantic, goofy grin, and Blake realized it in a horrific jolt.

" _It's not him!_ " he shouted, and tore for a tree just as the foreign Pokémon filled the field with the distorted, melodic psychic waves of Hypnosis.

Blake hit the tree and vaulted up it effortlessly, hands and feet finding holds as he launched himself skyward, leaving the attack intended for him behind. He heard teams deploying, shouted orders and the crashing sounds of many people trying to jostle to escape the cramped, destroyed hallway down below. Blake tossed a glance over his shoulder at the ground and saw a host of his friends' Pokémon converging on the Ghost, a second before two more Gengars appeared out of mist to flank it. For a second Blake thought he was going insane—and then it hit him. He knew now who they were up against.

The Initiates did, too. "It's Wyland!" Gina and Jason shouted together, just as Blake looked down from his vantage point and spotted a slender, dark-clad figure tearing through the forest to make a getaway.

"Down here!" he shouted to the others, he didn't care who. He was getting away.

Jason, Orion and Tim leapt into action, their team members streaking behind them as they crashed into the woods to follow Wyland. High up though he was, Blake rapidly lost sight of them as they tore into the forest behind him. It only hit Blake with a jolt when it was already too late to shout a warning to them—Orion only had Normal types at his disposal.

No longer feeling useful up in the tree now that they'd found their quarry and he'd avoided the attack, Blake slid his way down as quickly as he could, landing in a crouch at the base of the massive trunk. The fight on the lawn had moved into the line of trees, Wyland's Ghosts luring them in, and Blake understood why immediately. They would be at a crazy disadvantage in this tightly-packed forest. The ghosts were intangible and could move through the obstacles the others would have to negotiate. Blake grit his teeth, sizing up the space he had to work with, and quickly determined Grumpy was out. He jammed his belt and Farfetch'D and Golbat appeared before him, his duck streaking off into battle and his bat flapping haphazardly higher as if to survey the fight first.

The first Gengar that had appeared, the playful one with the big, stupid grin, spread its arms and took a bow for some unknown reason. It was blasted with both fire and water immediately and leapt up to avoid them both in a tight spin. A second Gengar slopped down to take its place, and Blake had to stare at it for a second to determine that it was actually a Gengar at all. It looked more like a Muk, and when Gina and Amaris screamed " _Dodge!_ " in unison Blake understood why. A second later it flung itself forward at a large group of their Pokémon in what Blake realized was Toxic.

Most Pokémon were able to leap out of the way, but Kaylee's youngest Arcanine, Beth's Poliwrath, and Blake's own Farfetch'D were hit. His Golbat danced lazily out of the way in his usual style from where he'd dropped lower to investigate.

Gina's Nidoqueen slammed her fists down into the earth and quickly disappeared into it, sending dirt chunks the size of tires flying in her wake. She was digging, and Blake knew Gina had been practicing this move with her—something about Yuji from Viridian Gym using it to great effect. Blake could only hope a Gym Leader technique would give them an edge against a member of the Elite 4.

The third Gengar moved in to Mega Punch Gav's Marowak, but the limber Ground-type dodged. Gav's Pokémon caught a Mega Kick to the abdomen next, unfortunately, but retaliated with a Bone Club straight to its opponent's face. Blake did some quick move math in his head and realized that, of Marowak's techniques, literally only Bone Club and Bonemerang would work here—absolutely everything else Gav's Pokémon knew was a Normal-type move.

Finn's Ivysaur barreled his way in and cracked out his vines against Gengar's flank. The punching-kicking Gengar's only reaction was to close one blood red eye for a moment and turn its head ever so slightly away. There was no hint at all of the outline of a red mouth on its stern, serious face. By contrast, the goofy Gengar flew straight for Ivysaur and got pelted with chaotic Razor Leaves. It immediately turned it into a game, tossing bits of purple ectoplasm shadow back at the Grass-type like they were having a ninja battle with throwing stars. Kaylee's older Arcanine blasted fire at it and the Gengar screeched in shock and hightailed it away, grabbing its smoking ass with both hands. If a sign could broadcast to the world what Blake was thinking at that moment, it would be a never-ending tickertape of neon "WTF?"

He was pointless in this stupid fight, yet again. For the first time since his bird's evolution, Blake fervently wished he was just a bit smaller. The least he could do was serve as a healer and status effect buster, and Blake dug in his cargo pockets for some mesh bags of Antidote. He whistled, held the bag aloft, and the poisoned Pokémon seemed to realize what he was doing and orbited in closer to him. Blake squeezed the solution liberally across each Pokémon's flank in turn, but never took his eyes off the fight. He nearly dropped his bag of Antidote when Gina's Nidoqueen erupted out of the ground and almost hit one of the Gengars, but at the last second it fazed out. Blake swore as it reappeared—

Only to be slammed into by Gav's little Diglett, of all things. It had been following Gina's Nidoqueen's lead, apparently, and they got the Gengar with a one-two counterstrike.

Gina's Sandslash was sanding the hell out of what Blake had deemed to be the most dangerous Gengar—the one who had so badly poisoned three of their team members in one go. The Gengar slopped forward over and over but kept getting pelted full of sand and dirt, which was gunking its toxins up and seemed to work well to hold it at bay.

"Go help!" Blake said to Farfetch'D, who had just had the last of his bag of Antidote. Farfetch'D flitted his short wings rapidly and took flight, careening past Amaris' head, but the redhead did a sharp double take after Blake's duck and called a warning to him.

"Not your birds!" he shouted. "Call him back, it—" Charizard's roar drowned out the rest of Amaris' explanation, but Blake didn't need one.

He whistled shrilly for Farfetch'D to return in the nick of time. Thunderbolt scored down from absolutely nowhere and Farfetch'D quacked loudly as one tail feather careened off, blackened and singed. Sandslash, grounded, absorbed the lightning blow with nothing more than a brief twitch of surprise.

Charizard had stepped up to the plate to help Kaylee's Arcanines against the no-mouth Gengar. It seemed to detest fire and favored its Fighting-type moves that put it into closer quarters with their group. It seemed like a good plan to keep it as far away as possible. Still, Blake had a twisting, sinking feeling in his gut as he released Beth's Poliwrath from his care and edged back against a tree to watch. Wyland hadn't made it to the E4 by letting fire stop him from using a team member to its fullest ability. The fight was too easy, even as fast-paced and hair-raising as it was.

His team was holding back.

There was a crashing sound from the trees behind Blake, and he spun around in time to see two more Gengars explode into the clearing, flanking Wyland, who ducked between two trees as if to flee. Tim's Kabutops and Jynx drove him back, appearing directly in his path, but the first Gengar rushed them right through its trainer. Wyland was forced to back up against a tree, much the way Blake had done, and not a second too soon. If the forest had been full earlier it was now packed fit to burst.

Orion's Clefable leapt into the path of a Hyper Beam from one of the Gengars and threw up a Light Shield that blocked both itself and Venusaur from harm. Venusaur was hunkered over, and Blake had missed the humming sound in the din of the fight until it reached a volume he could not ignore. The second Hyper Beam ended, Light Shield went down and Venusaur blasted the Gengar with a Solar Beam that lit up the forest with a bleaching, blinding white light. Blake groaned in frustrated agony, blinking myopically as he saw the Gengar evaporate into mist, avoiding most of the damage.

Both Alakazams were out, Blake now realized, which struck him as a terrible idea. With that type disadvantage he couldn't imagine what Jason and Amaris were thinking, but if their Psychic-types were out shit must be dire. Both gold teleporters were hopping constantly throughout the field, firing off attacks whenever they could, but for the most part they were kept busy simply evading. The Gengars seemed to scent them like blood in the water, and two of the five were constantly preoccupied trying to land Night Shades on them. Layer upon layer of concentrated, coursing waves of darkness made patches of the forest warble unsteadily.

A Gengar rushed in from behind Blake and he just about jumped out of his skin, but a second later he recognized it. Zahlia's Gengar was back, and vanished into the grinning Gengar's shadow. The enemy Gengar made an exaggerated look of utmost offense before disappearing as well, and Blake got the distinct impression they were doing battle incorporeally as mere dark patches in the grass.

For the first time, Wyland spoke. "Three, two!" It made no sense, but it couldn't be good.

The serious fighter Gengar, the Muk-like one and a third, very blank-faced Gengar all fell into one another seamlessly. Blake didn't understand for a second—were they combining their powers to form one super Gengar? Then they released a Psybeam—the most intense, blinding, overwhelming of its kind he had ever seen. No one had time to do anything as it struck Jason's Fearow and Tim's Jolteon—and took both powerful Pokémon straight out of the battle in a one-hit K.O.

"Jesus!" someone shouted. It might have even been Blake. They could never let that happen again, and what was worse, not everyone in their group had seen it. " _Orion!_ " Blake shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth and bellowing as loud as he could in the elder Fremont's direction. "Orion! Clefable!" Orion finally turned to face him, his eyes a ravaging, wildman intense, and Blake prayed he could comprehend him through the haze. " _Sing!_ " Blake roared, feeling his throat tear on the shout, jabbing his finger at the Gengar group. If Sing failed they'd need Stun Spore at the very least—it was their next best bet.

Jason was on it, and Venusaur sent a huff of buzzing, agitated gold powder at the Gengars even as Clefable began to croon an eerie, haunting tune.

The three Gengars leapt back in a smooth, seamless motion as if they really were of one mind. The Pokémon in the area they were facing scattered as quickly as they could, but when the Ghost types spat out an enormous, transparent eruption of Confuse Ray, Blake could only watch in dismayed horror. Almost half the Pokémon in the field were suddenly rendered unpredictably useless. Blake gritted his teeth and scowled at the ugly battle that was quickly tipping the scales decidedly not in their favor, and realized something he should have gathered long ago.

Meek and understated or no, Wyland was a phenomenal trainer. He'd clearly been holding back almost a laughable amount during the League challenges if Jason, Gina and Amaris had managed to defeat him all in one-on-one combat.

Violet burst into Blake's line of sight as Zahlia's Gengar got forcibly kicked out of the shadows on the grass. He flew straight through Blake, who was in the middle of snagging at Farfetch'D's new copper Pokéball at his belt. His bird was clearly too confused to continue fighting—his friggin' bat had dodged yet again, though. Blake fought off the ghost-induced full-body shiver and caught sight of the happy Gengar—or, the formerly happy Gengar. It looked decidedly less so now, and Blake and many of the others shouted, "No!" as it leapt into the Gengar group. No sooner had it joined its team members than all four had to mist away to avoid three streams of fire.

They were four strong when they blasted Night Shade at Poliwrath, Sandslash and Amaris' Alakazam, so Blake figured that was why it felt like he'd just died. The black and silence was so thick and absolute Blake had a hard time convincing himself light and sound had ever existed at all. When he staggered around blind, tripped over a root and went down hard, the pain that shot up his wrists was almost a relief. At least it meant he could still get data from one of his senses.

When the darkness abated the first thing Blake saw was that all three Pokémon were down. Absolute horror rose in his throat and the forest devolved into utter chaos.

Everything was so loud, bright and immediate after that choking darkness, and they needed a strategy badly—but Blake couldn't think. His head was buzzing, he couldn't form a single thought in the back of his mind. How could he have ever achieved distance and logic with his backburner brain before?

All four Gengars pivoted to attack again, and the fifth leftover one blasted at a Pokémon behind Blake with something that rolled over him like an unstoppable sea. _Hypnosis_ , Blake realized dimly, barely aware of how different this move felt from anything he'd experienced before. Blake moved to dive aside but it was almost comical—he was so sluggish, so clumsy and slow, and he felt his legs give up on him and buckle halfway.

* * *

 _The bastard child's getting taller._

 _Zeke feels lucky for one of the first times in his life. He knew it would be a grab bag to see who he got, which one of this ragtag team would be teleported into his particular room of the Saffron City Gym. He'd been hoping for Zahlia, he'd been willing to settle for punching Orion Fremont in the face… but he didn't even realize how fun Blake would be until the little whelp appeared before him._

 _He's such a good liar, and he never looks afraid. Even now he's calculating, weighing his words carefully, trying to play Zeke. What a joke. Zeke grew up with Vaughn Nakawa as a father—no one plays him._

 _When Zeke name-drops the League, Blake gets it. His face is blank, just the way Zahlia's always is—what a fucking pair they make—but Zeke can see the look of_ oh shit _on the runt's face. A surge of sadistic satisfaction fills him. The kid's not carved from stone, after all._

 _And, what do you know—Nancy Nakawa's mistake has tricks up his sleeve, because a second later Zeke's face is full of a Pidgeotto and he's tackled around the middle by a battering ram of gangly limbs. Zeke finds it in himself to be distantly impressed as they vanish almost before his back even hits the telewarp tile._

* * *

 _Blake never holds back, and Zeke can't understand why it took him this long to appreciate that. The wayward Nakawa child wipes the floor with Zeke in Pokémon Monopoly without a shred of mercy and Zeke loves it. He groans and laughs as he shells out colorful, fake marks to the boy with their mother's dark eyes and revels in the fact that he's not afraid of him—not at all, but then again, he never really was. The scrawny twig of a preteen has grown into a man somewhere far away in a place Zeke has never had access to._

 _Zahlia's the one who's making it difficult, in the end. He can feel her tension and distrust, and even though he knows Blake hates him, at least with his little brother it's simple._

 _Little brother._

 _It gives Zeke pause. He's never really tried out the sound of that before, and he finds with some interest that he likes it._

* * *

 _He really doesn't want Orion Fremont's face to be the last thing he ever sees—but Zeke doesn't have a great track record of getting what he wants. The ground leaves his feet and it's sheer, dumb luck that his back strikes a jagged set of broken planks of wood instead of empty, open air. Zeke clings desperately to the blasted-open hole in the Pokémon Tower and understands with sudden, brilliant clarity that these are his final moments. The world is so bright and so loud, and Zeke struggles as hard as he can to take it all in._

 _And then Blake is there, diving into the murderous path of the Fremont boy's Metronome, reaching for him and finding his arm with a grip that bruises. Zeke just stares at him, a million and one thoughts surging wildly through a head that hasn't been this clear in years._

No—get back! We don't have to both die here today—

What are you doing, Zahlia and mother can't lose you—

You're the _good_ son, you idiot bastard—

This is the last human contact I'll ever experience.

I want mom. I want to see her one more time.

I'll never get to say I'm sorry.

 _Zeke had begun to doubt that Blake could even experience fear at all, but there it is now, etched in every line of his face. He tries to pull them back inside, but he's just a boy, not even sixteen quite yet, and the wall is giving way and they aren't going to make it._

 _His mother's eyes stare back at him, blazing, fierce and stubborn even in the face of fear and pain and death, and all Zeke wants to do now as they tear out into the open air is thank his little brother._

 _He got to see his mother one last time after all._

 _Zeke can feel him trying, but Blake's fingers leave his arm._

* * *

Blake opened his eyes and saw nothing but gray.

 _I'm fucking dead,_ was his first disbelieving thought. His second was, _no, I'm just finally goddamn insane. Way to go me, I held out for a long time there._

He tried to turn around to see something else—anything else—and a distant figure caught his eye. They were the only splash of color in this monochrome landscape, but Blake couldn't even really call it "color"—the person approaching him was a study in black and white. Blake squinted, heart hammering in his ears, picking out dark hair, pale skin, black clothing—and then he understood.

He was dead, because this had to be hell.

He blinked hard, hoping the image would vanish, and when he opened his eyes Zeke was standing right in front of him. Blake jumped a mile.

His brother had no dark circles under his eyes, no sallowness to his skin, and his dark hair didn't sport the sheen of unkempt grease Blake had last seen. Zeke's face even looked different, an almost unrecognizable expression of honest shock and some kind of vulnerable, stripped-bare emotion making him look so much younger than the 22 he'd reached before he died.

Blake felt like he should say something, but his brain stalled out. And, unbidden, from a slumbering place deep inside, a stray thought emerged.

 _Okay. If heaven is supposed to be bright and hell is supposed to be dark, does gray mean purgatory? Does it work that way?_

Of all the times for Backburner Blake to kick back on. Blake blinked hard at Zeke, still mute, and for some insane reason he didn't pull away when Zeke reached out for his shoulder. His brother mouthed his name in the perfect silence, his face transported with sane, clear-eyed wonder—

* * *

" _Get up!_ "

Blake's eyes snapped open for real. For a flat, suspended second he was sure the face above his would be his dead brother's, but the eyes were too bright, the hair all wrong. Zeke didn't have freckles, did he?

Amaris hauled him to his feet, his face sooty and his hands shaking but insistent. Backburner Blake figured it was PTSD—it looked like Amaris had just been close to fire. "I know. He did it to me once, it sucks. _Keep moving_."

He should have been a half-destroyed wreck, a hole blown straight through him by the awful, emotional gravity of what he'd just seen, but something was clearing in Blake's head even as his core ached terribly and what he realized were tears dried on his cheeks.

"All one target," he said, numbly, as Amaris tried to shove him behind a tree.

"What?" the Initiate asked, only half-listening to Blake's misplaced babble.

"They're all one target like that," Blake reiterated, hoping that if he doubled the number of words he spoke it would make more sense.

Amaris blinked at him hard a few times. "Yes," he conceded, "but anything that aims an attack their way gets demolished."

"So we do it anyway. Only other option is to keep running and getting picked off one by one."

Amaris paused, but Blake could see the gears turning now. "They'll—they'll get hit for sure, some of them. Almost all of our team will get taken out in the process."

"'Never let your partners fall,'" Blake said flatly, quoting one of the Champions who had scratched that advice onto the VR wall so long ago. "But sometimes they fall and there's nothing you can do."

Zeke was silhouetted in Blake's mind, growing smaller and smaller as the earth rushed up to take him home. He could tell when he looked at Amaris' face that the other boy understood at least some of the aftershock he was experiencing.

"You're right," Amaris said, curt and short. He wasted no time shouting to one side of the field, and somehow Blake found it in himself to call to the other half.

"No choice! Stand your ground, face center—they're all in one spot!"

Blake's team of maniacs drove him crazy sometimes, but they never shone brighter than when it was all on the line. They heard him—they understood. With only the slightest staggering of moves, all evasions ceased. Their teams turned in as a unit, each member facing the group of Gengars as one. Blake counted Clefable, two Arcanines, Golduck, Jolteon and more, but before he had a full idea of who was attacking they struck. Fire, water, electricity and intangible bursts of energy erupted from the lopsided circle and Blake flung his arms up over his face from the steam alone. A sound like a train wreck rattled through his bones and Blake could only guess what the Gengars were retaliating with. He peeled his arms away from his face earlier than was wise and squinted through the haze, his heart in his throat. If his plan hadn't worked…

Golduck and one Arcanine were barely clinging to their last scraps of health. Clefable, Arcanine, Jolteon and two other Pokémon he couldn't see were down.

But so was the Gengar group. Wyland had gone from a full roster to one fifth of his team. The last remaining ghost was forced to shadow to its trainer's side to protect him.

"Don't you even think about it!" Victoria snarled. Victreebel whipped a teleporter device Blake hadn't seen out of Wyland's hand and smashed it into pieces against a tree.

Blake and the others had five entire seconds of blistering, jelly-legged relief. Then the world exploded.

There was so little time to react it was like they'd actually lost seconds from the day. Blake barely had time to feel his face morph into an expression of stupid shock when twelve attacks erupted from six new Pokémon—

From six dragons.

Blake fell directly onto his ass as the earth rumbled wildly under his feet. Hyper Beam—and the flames of Dragon Rage, he knew that blue fire. A tree crashed to the ground between two wildly confused Pokémon, then another, and then a third. Hurricane-force wind whipped across the forest, a scream echoed through his ears—fire, then more fire, flashes of gold mass, a Gyarados' roar.

The forest had been so tightly packed before, but somehow the Dragonmaster had levelled out a respectable space between their group and Wyland. The unmoving forms of fainted Pokémon on the torn-up grass had easily doubled in only a few chaotic, mind-rupturing seconds, and every single remaining creature had fallen back to protect their humans.

Not a single person or Pokémon moved a muscle for several frozen seconds. Blake thought he could feel it—there was an unspoken, creeping knowledge that, if they let out all of the rest of their team members in this new makeshift clearing, they could overpower Lance together. Yet something about his electrifying, arresting presence stopped them. Blake knew it was only partly the sudden realness of Kanto's most famous face. The more logical reason was, in spite of everything, they still desperately wanted him on their side.

It was a relief when Lance finally broke the silence. Blake was sure none of the rest of them could have managed it then.

"Why in the world would you come back to this place?" Lance asked, his face still a veiled threat but his gravelly voice more confused than anything.

Tim spoke up first, the only one of them who'd ever had a positive interaction with the leader of the Elite Four. "Lance," he said, sounding just a little daunted. The sheer volume of information they had to impart was staggering. "You've got to give us a chance to talk. You might think you know what's going on here, but it isn't the whole story."

"Remember what happened at Saffron, Lance?" Wyland spoke up for the first time.

"I did not ask for your input," Lance interrupted, not even giving Wyland a backward glance. "I'll deal with you later. The fact that you were skulking around here at all incriminates you, believe me."

Blake wasn't into the whole "jump on the hope bandwagon" thing. That was more Beth's territory, which was why they balanced each other out so well. Yet even he couldn't deny that Lance's words here were encouraging.

Gav stepped forward next. "Sir. My name is Gav Harrison. I'm—"

"I know who you are," Lance cut in, but said no more.

Gav only took a faltering second to regroup. "Will… you please tell us what you think is going on here?"

It was an interesting tactic, very diplomatic and very Gav. While Lance's eyes did narrow in suspicion, he didn't refuse or react rashly, and Blake finally climbed aboard the "holy shit, maybe we can do this" train.

Three flashes of sudden red light might as well have been canon fire. Their highstrung group leapt, and Lance's face broke into an expression of furious, disbelieving rage. Blake didn't understand—why did he look so unhappy if he'd just recalled three of his dragons?

When the other three disappeared not half a second later—all with Lance never once reaching for a ball or a belt—Blake understood.

"Fall back!" he screamed just as someone else cried, "Get down!" not a second too soon. The quiet underbrush exploded and a flood of unfamiliar Pokémon charged.

Blake's train careened off its tracks and crashed in a fiery wreck below. God damn it—he should have known.

* * *

 _Author's note: Short update in the profile as well as review replies. A little buried right now but I do have a tiny chapter buffer. I'll be a little slow at posting until it's healthier, though._


	7. His Strongest Team Member :Jason:

Pokémon Azure

Chapter 7: His Strongest Team Member

(Jason Fremont)

Jason stumbled backward over a jagged stump and went down hard, rolling upright as quickly as he could. The makeshift clearing in front of him went up in blinding flames, a five-pointed mark aimed from a duckbilled, red and gold creature. Fire Blast from a Magmar—and they were only three seconds into this fight.

Jason staggered and snapped his head up to watch for Venusaur. His starter's flower erupted with his usual dinner plate-sized leaves to block fire attacks, but there was no way he could stop them all. Exeggutor, newly-evolved and still adjusting to its new body, hunkered down next to him, taking shelter from the flames the best it could. When the eruption of fire ceased, Jason knew the smell of singed plantlife. Venusaur might have blocked a good portion of the damage, but both Pokémon had sustained a burn.

"Sleep it!" he shouted, dashing to the side to avoid a falling branch—there was a vicious scuffle going on high above him in the treetops. Venusaur issued forth a fallout cloud of silvery-white powder straight for the Magmar, but a steady, swirling Flamethrower roasted almost all of it away. Jason cursed.

All around him private battles raged. Jason couldn't afford to take it all in, but through the snapshots of elemental moves, flashing claws, flying fists and creatures and people scurrying past he tried to locate the Dragonmaster. Lance was out there somewhere, defenseless. That red light had to be Returner tech, which meant his dragons were trapped inside their Pokéballs just as Amaris' Pidgeot had been so long ago.

Jason spun back to the battle between his starter and the Magmar just in time to see the Fire-type stretch its bill wide, suck in a deep breath, and emit voluminous plumes of noxious, black smoke. It spread far and wide, unthinkably fast, and Jason was forced to retreat several hasty steps back, his eyes already watering and bile rising in his throat. He wasn't even sure if it was Smokescreen or Smog, but it hardly mattered. The effect was the same.

With fumbling fingers, Jason clawed for a ball at his belt. He had been forced to recall his near-collapse Alakazam early on. The two Psychic-types had been a great distraction for the Gengars, effortlessly drawing the Ghost-types' attention with the big, shiny type disadvantage, but they'd learned the hard way they couldn't jeopardize their teleporters. Tim's Jynx was firmly in hiding now too, and Jason didn't think Amaris had had time to revive his own Alakazam yet.

His fingers found their mark, red light engulfed a sizable portion of the space next to him, and Rhydon reared up on his hind legs, already blinking myopically in the smoke and haze. His Rock-type barely had time to roar in confused anger when a shrill whistle split the clearing, the sort Jason's PE teacher might have used during dodgeball. Jason's head snapped toward the sound, but before he could make sense of it, a Hypno tore straight through the smog, gold arms crossed in front of its face. Jason jumped back as the Hypno unfurled its lean, sinewy body and landed a solid punch straight to his Rhydon's face. _Pound?_ Jason thought, bewildered and not understanding, but a second later Rhydon's attempt at a retaliatory Horn Attack merely made his Pokémon spin uselessly on the spot. _Pound coupled with Disable. Shit._

The Hypno cracked its mouth open much the way the Magmar had, and when Poison Gas spilled forth in low, fast-moving waves, Jason threw his arms up over his face and ran in the other direction, gagging and spitting. He was now at least half a clearing away from the fight he'd originally been monitoring with Venusaur.

Somewhere along the way he'd picked up Amaris. The redhead and he backed up against the remaining trees, surveying the area that was rapidly filling with smoke and smog and gas.

"Where's Blastoise?" Jason asked through the t-shirt he had pulled up over his face.

Amaris' voice was likewise muffled as he spoke through the elbow of his long-sleeved shirt. "Last I saw an Electabuzz was after him and Starmie," he shouted back. _Bad goddamn luck,_ Jason privately thought. There were type disadvantages cropping up in this fight left, right and center and it had barely been raging for a minute.

A screech carried to them across the wind, and a second later Jason's head snapped up as wings blotted out the moonlight. He recognized Gina's Pidgeot high above them and grinned as her bird flapped furiously to clear the smog away from their immediate vicinity. Not a second later, though, he had to shout, " _Go!_ " at the Flying-type—he was being pursued by an Electrode, and Pidgeot barely made it away from an electricity-charged Tackle in time.

The black smoke was wafting away slowly, though, and when Jason could see more of the battle clearly again the dismal reality of it settled in on him like lead shoes for his heart. An Omastar was hosing down Charizard, a ghoulish Haunter had Persian and Raticate cornered, and Jason got it at once. It was stupid of him to think the type mismatching was a coincidence.

Amaris had seen it, too. In perfect unison, both Initiates shouted, " _Swap up!_ "

Their voices didn't carry to the entire field, but those who did hear cottoned on quick. Like a domino effect, Jason could hear their order rippling across the field, shouted by many voices.

And they tried to obey—they really did. Finn's Ivysaur leapt to try to engage the Omastar on Charizard's back, but his vines hadn't even left his flower bud when a Ninetails cut in and Embered him. Ivysaur landed hard, rolled upright, and was forced to retreat, going on the defensive and leaving Charizard to grapple the Water-type alone. When Starmie rushed to assist, it was Thunderbolted straight out of the sky.

Two human figures flashed in sudden movement in Jason's peripheral vision, and he looked in time to see Blake blocking Beth from running over to her fallen Pokémon. One arm around Beth's waist, the other at his belt, Blake finally deployed Grumpy. The trainers were quickly blocked out by Blake's Pidgeot, and a second later he provided unthinkably powerful Whirlwind cover, which sent an Electrode flying messily into the treeline. From under Grumpy's wing, Beth beelined for Starmie, a Hyper Potion in her hand.

This entire time, Jason had not been able to lay eyes on a single new person. There were his friends, and somewhere in the crowd he knew Wyland and Lance still remained. Who the hell was in charge of these new Pokémon? They hadn't revealed themselves yet, and while Jason's Pokémon grappled against their foes, he had no human target to focus on.

Throughout the field only two fights lacked a blatant type mismatch. Blake's flippant, dodgy Golbat was going toe-to-toe with another Golbat, bigger and paler. The enemy bat surged forward and nearly bit Blake's, but at the last second Blake's spilled air from his wings, nearly hit the forest floor, then careened back up, upside-down, to blast his foe with Supersonic. The attack missed by an embarrassing margin, but at least Blake's Pokémon never seemed to sustain a single point of damage himself.

To his left, Gav's Golem was squaring off against the biggest Graveler Jason had ever seen. Golem and Graveler were face-to-face, craggy hands clasped, and each dug enormous trenches in the earth in what was rapidly devolving into a sumo match.

Over the screaming, shuffling din, Jason finally spotted Lance. The leader of the Elite Four was down on one knee, his belt off and held inches in front of his face while he wrestled with the balls still attached to it. Tim stood guard over him, two of his Pokémon orbiting around their trainer to keep others from getting too close.

Amaris had spotted Lance at the same time. "Don't force it!" he shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth. "We can help!"

It was then that a human finally appeared. He emerged from a plume of leftover smoke, a high-collared jacket held over his nose and mouth, dark wraparound sunglasses hugging what little could be seen of his tan face under a mop of dark hair. He looked to be roughly Tim's age, and that was precisely who he was headed for.

In Jason's experience, Tim was normally never caught completely off-guard. Things surprised the Champ, and occasionally confused him, but he wasn't the sort to fall victim to bone-deep, absolute shock. Jason was seeing this for the first time as Tim's jaw dropped for a few seconds before he could speak.

"Sergio," Jason saw him mouth. It was not a question. It was delivered more as if Tim needed to say it out loud before he could accept it was real.

Somewhere in the back of Jason's mind, something clicked. He knew the name, remembered hearing it just recently and thinking how lame it was a Pokemon-abusing prick of a sore loser had the badass name Jason had once wanted on his fake ID. The League Challenger who had failed to attain Champion status, who had apparently vanished only a few weeks into his mandated anger management therapy, stepped forward purposefully toward Tim and the Jolteon who was guarding him. Sergio pulled the collar of his coat back down, pushed the sunglasses up on his head, and fixed Tim's Pokémon with a steady, unbroken stare.

Jason could see Jolteon physically trying its best. The Champ's Electric-type pulled a conflicted expression, then trembled with strain, but after a second clear fear showed all over its agonized face. A second later it sank to the ground in one harsh shudder, head bowed.

They had suspected it all along, but now they knew. This Challenger, at least, had been exposed to Factor A.

Jason whipped his head around the clearing, searching out Orion. He found his brother without difficulty, picking out the tall figure with the fair blond hair, but Orion was 100% preoccupied. The spindly, creepily lean Haunter was still resolutely after his Normal-types, and just as Jason locked eyes on the battle he saw Raticate go down after a one-two punch of the narcotic effect of a powerful Hypnosis coupled immediately with a Dream Eater follow-up. Orion surged forward and the Haunter ducked back for a moment, thinking twice, and Jason knew his brother could not be spared from that fight.

He glanced back to the drama unfolding on the other side of the field in time to see Lance look up and lock eyes with Sergio. His lined face pulled into a snarl, but before anyone could say anything, a cry split the sky.

Jason snapped his eyes skyward, and for a second couldn't reconcile what he was seeing. The unmistakable silhouette of a Dragonite cut through the moonlight, but Jason didn't understand how it was possible. There'd been no flash of red from Lance. He glanced down to confirm it, and it was true—all six balls were still latched to his belt, unmoving and locked.

But Tim had gone pale. Jason didn't understand until Amaris spoke up beside him.

"Owen McCarty. 2041."

Even then it took a second for the name and the date to sink in, but it flooded Jason before long. The grainy footage Kaylee had showed them, the 2041 Championship match filmed by drunk yahoos on a shaky camcorder.

Even as Jason put the pieces together, Tim's face transported with rage just in time for a second man to appear. He dropped from the sky and landed in a crouch. He stood to what Jason thought was his full height, but just kept on going, easily capping out at what had to be 6'4. His hair was so pale it was almost white, and as Owen McCarty looked around the field, assessing the situation, Jason saw with a chill that his eyes were so pale they almost looked white, too. The nearly colorless blue somehow made him look unreal. By contrast his skin was downright pink against the monochrome combination of his eyes and hair, and for all his height he had almost no muscle definition, a spindly, lean ghost of a man.

Owen and Tim locked eyes and Jason saw the fight that was going to erupt between them with the same kind of inevitability he could spot in a wild a second before it made the choice to flee or fight. A split second later, Owen charged, and Tim wasted no time surging forward to meet him halfway before he could get any closer to Lance. The two men met, Tim ducking under a blow and surging forward to drive a shoulder into Owen's gut, only to be rebuffed before he could land his strike.

Immediately Jason and Amaris had to dart several yards back. Tim and Owen weren't the only ones fighting. Owen had clearly given his team the directive to go for the same type disadvantage, revolving door dance. Tim's Primeape slammed into a Nidoking, and at once they began to trade vicious, fast, hard-hitting blows. Horn Attack was buffed off by Karate Chop, Fury Swipes blocked by Double Kicks, and a Horn Drill missed by millimeters. They rushed in to meet, Thrash to Thrash.

Mere feet away, Tim's Hitmonlee locked itself into a battle against a Mr. Mime. Jason cringed, but Hitmonlee proved extremely agile. Nevertheless, the fight quickly took a turn for the worse as Tim's fighter was put purely on the defensive, first from Confusion, then Psybeam, then Psychic in an exponentially climbing series of powerful moves.

A Parasect went for Jolteon, still totally vulnerable and bowed low from whatever Sergio had done to it. Before it could get within range, Grumpy tore into the clearing and intervened with a Wing Attack that blasted through the attempt at Spore. The Grass-type didn't even have time to back up before he Gusted the smaller Pokémon into the air.

There was one Snorlax in the forest, which was already way too much, and when Tim's Ditto transformed and doubled that number, Amaris and Jason were forced backward into a tree. They split around either side of it to avoid being crushed by the two enormous Pokémon that crashed straight through the spot, and when Jason emerged from the underbrush he had a vantage point of the final fight.

His heart sank. Kabutops was alone against a Dewgong and the Dragonite, which had finally landed. Kabutops was blindingly fast. It Hardened even as it Slashed, dodged while also aiming a Hydro Pump at the Dragonite, and although that missed, its follow-up Absorb hit Dewgong straight in the chest followed by another Slash which hit its mark, too. Yet there was no way it could keep this up indefinitely.

Jason scoured the area for Venusaur, trying to blot out the gold flashes above his head as Dragonite upped its speed with Agility. Venusaur and Amaris' battered Exeggutor were still having a hell of a time with the Magmar. Venusaur whipped it, badly burning his vines in the process, leaves cut through Smokescreen, though not very much, Exeggutor's Barrage met a Fire Punch partway, but when Amaris' Grass-type issued forth Hypnosis the Magmar was able to buff it off.

Jason had no choice. He jammed a knuckle into the larger, clunkier copper ball at his belt, and Alakazam appeared in the clearing before him, still slumped over and weak from the long battle he'd had previously. His Psychic-type fixed Jason with a tired, brown gaze and Jason reached out to rest a hand on his arm.

"Do what you can. Swap our guys out to better positions. I trust you—you've got this."

Alakazam didn't hesitate for a second before vanishing. In a rush, Jason could understand perfectly how Nick could trust his own Psychic Pokémon and let a Slowbro instruct other Pokémon in battle.

The Magmar vanished. For a faltering half a second Venusaur and Exeggutor ground to a screeching halt, bewildered, but a second later the Dewgong was in its place. The Grass-types only stared for another half second. Then Razor Leaves tore toward the seal, along with what had been a Solar Beam saved up for the Magmar. Owen's Water-type disappeared in the onslaught as Jason whipped his head back to where it had been. It was just in time to see Kabutops blast the Magmar straight in the face with Hydro Pump. The Pokémon bellowed, billowing huge clouds of steam.

Sergio had noticed, and Sergio was pissed. The dark haired challenger charged Jason's Alakazam, who tried to teleport but only managed to waver uncertainly before he resolidified, buckled down and cowered. Jason was tearing across the field before he even realized he was moving. Sergio, so focused on unleashing his neverending anger on Jason's Pokémon, didn't see the cold clock to the side of the head coming for him. He tumbled over sideways, but rolled over his shoulder and sprang to his feet at once. Then he redirected all of that anger straight at Jason.

Jason flew back several feet, dodging two rapid strikes, and between his countermoves and retaliatory elbows, punches and knees, his feet fell into triangle footwork almost effortlessly. And, he realized with a dim, _holy crap_ , staying still while in an actual fight was never an option. Somewhere underneath the screaming adrenaline of his combat, Jason knew his father had been right.

They traded blows for what felt like hours, but Jason knew to be only about half a blistering minute. Sergio's fist glanced off Jason's shoulder and smashed headlong into his jaw, the first strike he'd managed to land on him. Even as Jason tumbled over he saw hundreds of tiny green leaves smash straight into Sergio's face. Jason fell heavily to his side, but Sergio tumbled backward, screaming in fury and agony, both hands over his eyes.

Jason rolled upright, his head screaming, and barely caught sight of a third man who had appeared behind where Sergio was crouched on the grass. The stocky newcomer pulled a hood back from a shock of curly, dark hair, and before Jason could even think of shouting out a warning, he chucked something straight for Venusaur. A vine shot out to bat the object aside, laughably easy—

And then Jason's starter disappeared in red light.

Jason's entire planet dumped itself upside down. The roar that tore from his throat was unrecognizable. He was charging almost before he even gained his feet. But it was not the curly-haired man he slammed into. Something blue and tan blocked his path—Blastoise—and a second later, Amaris was there, too.

"We'll free him later!" Amaris shouted, wrestling Jason back and away.

"Let me go!" Jason shouted back, but even as he did he knew he couldn't focus on this right now. It killed him, but he knew they had to stop the third man. He had more of those balls, something they had not planned for. Their teams were safe from returner tech—but this was something else entirely.

Exeggutor sent out a rapid Barrage attack at the two men, and while the newcomer was able to dive aside, Sergio, still unable to see, caught a few devastating blows. It gave Jason just enough of a window of time to dart forward and snag the ball that now contained Venusaur.

Alakazam had recovered now that the Alpha Gene influence from Sergio was gone. The Psychic-type stood up, shook his head out, and vanished. A second later the Omastar against Charizard was swapped for a Ninetails. It was fire versus fire for Gina's starter, but what that swap had done was put the Omastar up against Finn's Ivysaur. The Omastar was actually in the middle of issuing forth a Water Gun, the spray vanishing from one side of the field and appearing abruptly in a new spot, but Ivysaur leapt straight through it mid-spray. He landed both vines and leaves against the enemy Pokémon in two devastating blows. The Omastar was jerked this way and that, and crashed to the ground, unmoving—taken out by what had to be two critical hits in a row.

From beside him Amaris snagged a Revive from his belt, catching on to what Jason's method had been with his own Alakazam. Before he could jam the syringe into his own teleporter's ball, they had to scatter again from a fight that moved too close. Jason had orbited far from where he'd started on the field, and was now close enough to see that the Hypno was ganging up on Gav's Golem. Golem ruptured the earth and flung jagged boulders at its gold enemy, but what damage it could inflict didn't stop the Hypno from taking him out a moment later with a concentrated, devastating Psychic. Golem crashed backward and did not rise, and Jason understood what that meant. His eyes tore across the field, and, sure enough, his Rhydon had not been able to keep the Hypno busy, because his Rhydon was down in a heap as well.

Both the wounded, enormous Graveler and the Hypno were now free. From where he had been forced to back up almost into the treeline, Jason saw Gav do something he had never done before.

Gav reached for his belt, removed a ball, and resorted to Onix. Red light flooded the forest, marking out an impossibly enormous, serpentine outline of where, any second now, trees would be destroyed and landscape ruined when the rock snake solidified. He was old, and took forever to form, but as he did in jerky, glitchy patches, the sound of rupturing wood rose, deafening, above all other sounds.

Jason ran as far away as he could get from the forming Pokémon. As he did so he passed by a battle that showed how desperate the situation had become. A Dodrio was wiping the floor with Amaris' Doduo. Jason had missed when the other Initiate had sent his bird out. It was undertrained, and he knew that meant they were all getting down to their last resorts.

A section of Onix's tail that had been mapped out in one loop suddenly jumped out into Jason's path, and he spun around and ran headfirst into Blake. Both boys careened to the ground, scrambled away from Onix's slowly-forming body, and Blake managed to grunt out, "Grumpy's down."

As if the situation couldn't get any grimmer. The bats were still at it high above them, but Grumpy was Blake's best fighter. Jason tried desperately not to think about the state his own best fighter was in, stuck in the ball now shoved in the pocket of his cargo pants. "You could—" he started, but Blake cut him off.

"No."

"Fearow is—"

"He'd sooner attack _us._ "

Jason opened his mouth to argue, to try to convince Blake that if ever there was a time to take that risk, now was it, but he didn't get a chance to.

Onix was done. Gav's oldest team member was instantly beset upon by not only the Hypno and the Graveler, but a Machamp Jason had somehow missed. Onix reared his head up slowly, a deeply displeased expression coming to his old, craggy face, and a second later he cracked his jaw open and screeched.

Jason grimaced and clapped his hands over his ears. All Pokémon in the vicinity buckled down in absolute agony—as did the three Challengers—and Orion. It was loud, and it hurt Jason's ears, but it was clear that, to the Pokémon and to those affected by Pokémon attacks, the auditory pain went deeper than that, ravaging and scraping against their nerves in a way Jason could only guess at. No one shouted to Gav to call the attack off, though, even if it was hurting Orion—they needed the distraction.

The Hypno dropped to a knee, rose to both feet, dropped down again, but before it could rise a second time Zahlia's Gengar fazed through Onix's side and blasted the Psychic-type straight in the face with Night Shade. The Hypno tumbled over backward, executing three full somersaults before it lay on its back in a heap. Gengar melted into shadow to avoid a Hydro Pump from Blastoise that spattered messily across the Graveler. It partly hosed Onix down as well, but if Onix was bothered by this, he didn't show it. The Graveler, who had gotten the brunt of the attack, staggered down to its knees, wounded but not completely down. The earth rumbled under Jason's feet in preparation for what he instinctively knew to be Earthquake, but before the Rock-type could execute its devastating move, Finn's Ivysaur tore through the din and took the Graveler the rest of the way out of the fight with Vine Whip. Jason had thought Ivysaur was acting largely of his own volition this whole time, but for the first time in the fight he laid eyes on Victoria, who shouted for her Pokémon to double back and redirect his attention to another fight the second he was done. Ivysaur didn't hesitate for a second before obeying the commands of his new trainer.

Jason's frantic running had brought him closer to Tim again and he almost tripped backward over what turned out to be the fallen form of Tim's Hitmonlee. The first thing that occurred to Jason upon looking at the Pokémon was dread—this meant that the Mr. Mime he had been fighting was unaccounted for. Yet as red and white flashed in his periphery he understood it was not going to remain so for long. Jason snapped his head to Tim just in time to see the Mr. Mime grab hold of him and vanish. From somewhere nearby Kaylee screamed Tim's name, but before the horror had a chance to take root, Tim reappeared. He materialized twelve or so feet in the air clear on the other side of the clearing and crashed heavily to the floor.

And that meant Lance was unprotected. Kabutops, who had been doing so well holding his own against the Dragonite, faltered for a split second, alerted to the sudden disappearance of his trainer—and that split second was all it took.

Owen's Dragonite slipped past him and slammed into Lance. The Dragonmaster's feet left the grass and he was airborne for a terrifying, frozen few seconds before he crashed backward into a tree.

A storm of black ice solidified in Jason's gut at the sound of his body cracking against the wood before he fell hard to the earth. Lance seemed so invincible, but all at once he remembered how old he really was. Lance was pushing seventy, and it was a miracle that he was stirring feebly on the ground at all.

Jason managed not to bolt straight through several battles in a beeline to get to him, instead skirting around the periphery. He skidded to his knees on the ground beside his childhood hero, his hands hovering uncertainly over his prone form. One thing registered immediately—his arm was broken, absolutely and without question, held at an odd angle from his body. But even now, Lance was struggling to speak and right himself.

"He took my team," he managed to grunt out, and Jason almost didn't hear, lowering his head closer. " _He has my team,_ " Lance reiterated, louder. Jason stared down at his hands, but they were empty. His Pokébelt was gone.

Jason tore his eyes around the field, searching for the Mr. Mime, and he'd only just clapped eyes on it when it vanished. This time it did not reappear.

Despair and helplessness weighed him down and rooted him to the spot, and Jason gritted his teeth, but stuck by Lance. It was the best he could do now, taking up the mantle of trying to keep the Elite Four leader from further harm. Venusaur's unnatural, smooth ball, so unlike the uneven and rough copper one, seemed to burn against his leg from where it was still tucked in his pocket. Thank god he had been able to grab it.

As if he'd been summoned by Jason's thoughts, the curly-haired man began to fling more of those treacherous Pokéball-like devices into the field. Jason shouted a warning that was no parts English at whoever was close enough to hear it.

Amaris jerked his head toward Jason, followed his line of sight, and wasted no time charging the man. Jason split his attention the best he could, noting that each of the three balls the man had chucked had missed their targets. No flashes of red light illuminated the field. But a second later he didn't care about that, anymore.

An Electabuzz appeared as if it had been transported there by magic, a mere ten feet before Amaris. By the time Amaris was able to stop running, that space had decreased to two. The Electric-type was surging with terrifying, powerful waves of energy, murder etched into the hard lines of its face, its dark eyes fixed, unblinkingly, on Amaris, who knew better than to retreat.

Jason tore to his feet, surging closer to the fight, but four screamed words stopped him dead in his tracks.

" _Don't get any closer!_ "

Jason's legs stopped without him really meaning them to, so urgent was the command. At first he thought it was the curly-haired man who had shouted the order, but a second later he realized he was mistaken as Amaris added over his shoulder, " _Stay back!_ "

Amaris never took his eyes off the Electabuzz, but all of his attention was focused backward on Jason, who could not understand. The other boy was cornered—he needed help, and there was no way Jason could offer that if he didn't engage. Amaris took half a step back and the Electabuzz rushed forward but did not strike. The message was clear: _move and you're dead_.

Jason took several running side-steps around the orbit of the standoff so he could try to at least read the expression on Amaris' face better. All the while his brain fired desperately on random synapses, running through his roster as well as Amaris', trying to pinpoint a Pokémon who could intervene and help. He needed Alakazam, had no idea where his Psychic-type was right now, and didn't want to remove his eyes from the tense scene in front of him, as if doing so would jinx it.

"Good boy," the curly-haired man said gruffly. "No sudden moves." And while the words implied that Amaris and the man had an understanding, Jason knew somehow it was a lie. He could tell, the way he always could, when an Electric-type was gearing up to strike.

Amaris was alerted to Jason's half a step forward, and finally tore his eyes away from the Pokémon before him. He looked more terrified and angry than Jason could ever recall, but he somehow understood he was not afraid for himself, or afraid of the Pokémon before him which could stop his heart in one move.

" _Left!_ " burst from Jason's mouth, and Amaris moved before he was done shouting. A score of lightning missed him by millimeters, scorching the earth where it struck, and not a second later an enormous, furious Fearow levelled both the Electabuzz and the curly-haired man.

It damn near got Jason, too. Jason bolted away from its wide, chaotically flapping wingspan, tripped and went down hard, but rolled upright. The bird issued forth a carrying, haunting screech that was still so familiar to him and associated with such terrible things, and Jason got it.

Blake had finally decided that desperate times called for desperate measures. But, Jason realized, perhaps that had been a mistake. The Fearow, having bowled over the people and Pokémon immediately before it, now pinwheeled midair and shot straight for Persian. Old rivalries apparently died hard for Zeke's Pokémon, and scant seconds before the bird could rake Orion's Pokémon with its outstretched talons, Blake returned it in a flash of red.

And, Jason realized, with a jolt of horror, that was not the only flash of red across the field. The challengers were recalling their teams… retreating.

"No!" someone shouted on the other side of the field. Ivysaur surged forward to try to restrain the curly-haired man with his vines, only to be burned back by a Ninetails that hadn't been there a second before. Jason spotted the crouched figure of the Mr. Mime beside it and realized what was happening. Their enemies were taking a leaf from Jason's book, using his technique to swap in type advantages wherever they saw fit.

But that wasn't his primary concern. His eyes tore over the Psychic-type, searching for Lance's Pokébelt, but it was nowhere to be seen. Where the hell had it gone?

He got to his feet, made it ten top-speed strides across the field, but wasn't even close enough to almost grab the curly-haired man before he vanished.

Across the field, Onix threw four Pokémon from his back, but three of them vanished before they ever hit the ground. A second later, Jason was forced to watch as Sergio, one hand still over his red, half-shut eyes, disappeared too.

All that was left now was Owen. Every single man, woman and Pokémon left standing rushed him as one. For a crazy, prolonged second, the creepy, pale man looked worried. He dodged around Tim, hit his knees to avoid an attack, and strummed his belt like piano keys in a way Jason had seen many times before. Orion's outstretched hand closed on thin air as Owen disappeared, almost before the red light of his returning Pokémon had faded.

" _God damn it!_ " someone shouted. It was still chaos. His friends and their Pokémon struggled to confirm that no enemies were left, but Jason spun around and tore back to where he had left Lance. The Dragonmaster had been joined by Wyland, who was crouched down beside him. Though Jason wanted nothing more than to introduce his fist to the Ghost trainer's face, he focused in on Lance instead. He was feeling his injuries more now, phasing in and out of consciousness, and Jason was on the verge of shouting for help when Tim arrived back on the scene. Jason scarcely had time to recall that Tim had enough first aid know-how to be able to patch up Blake's back in a pinch after Grumpy had torn it to ribbons, and backed off several paces to give Tim space to check on Lance properly.

Jason pulled in several haggard breaths, the movement and sound of his friends checking on each other, recalling and reviving their Pokémon and doing a furious post-battle head-count fading into the distance. As if in a dream, he reached his hand into his cargo pocket and pulled out the strange, smooth ball with trembling fingers. It wasn't a traditional red and white Silph ball, nor the blue of a Great Ball, nor the black and yellow of an Ultra Ball. It was a pure, steely gray, and Jason tried the button even though he knew inside it would never work.

His heart almost stopped when red light engulfed the entire area where he stood. He tore several startled feet backward, his heart in his throat, pure, blinding relief surging through every rubbed-raw nerve in his body. His face began to split into a wide, desperately grateful grin, and he got to take half a step toward his solidifying starter.

Jason never saw it coming, and if his Alakazam hadn't either, Jason would have been dead. His expression didn't even have time to change into one of shock as Venusaur charged. Gold flashed in his face, the familiar surge of a teleportation jump took him, and Jason landed on his knees half the field away, snapping his head up just in time to see Venusaur's attack land precisely where he'd been standing. Three enormous, serrated leaves bit deep into the ground, the second one splitting the first, the third splitting the second, and Venusaur reared back and roared out a sound that melted every bone in Jason's body.

He could do absolutely nothing but stare, but the rest of his team sprang into action. Golduck and Nidoking charged Jason's starter, Nidoking slamming full-bodied into Venusaur's face and grappling, while Golduck leapt up onto his flower and grabbed hold of the vines that were even now struggling to thrash Nidoking senseless. For a blistering two seconds they were alone in a fight Jason knew they couldn't win against his strongest team member.

Then Charizard dove down from above. Golduck combat-rolled off Venusaur's back just in time as Charizard landed hard on him. They rolled over together in an enormous, vicious spar.

Arms hauled Jason upright, but he barely registered. Venusaur shot Stun Spore straight into Charizard's face—Charizard's entire body jerked and jittered from instant paralysis even as he refused to let Jason's Grass-type go. Vicious Razor Leaves pelted the Fire-type next, followed by vines wrapped around his throat, and Gina's voice screamed in his ear, " _Return him! Jason, return him!_ "

Jason's hand obeyed even while his brain couldn't comprehend what was happening. Blastoise joined the fray, landing a staggering punch straight to Venusaur's face. It loosened the vines around Charizard's throat a modicum, and Charizard sucked in a ragged breath. He let it out on a Flamethrower. Venusaur's enraged, bellowing scream was the last thing Jason heard before he jammed the button on the steely ball still clutched in his grasp. For a time, Charizard's ragged wheezing and Blastoise's crashing footfalls taking several steps back were the only sounds in the clearing that cut the yawning, silent horror.

Then, as one, Jason's friends rounded on Wyland. Jason could only hear snips of questions—everyone was talking over everyone else, and none of it mattered. Gina's hands were clasped tight on his shoulders, and he realized she was the only thing holding him up as Gav finally shouted over everyone else.

" _Stop! Stop, we cannot do this here."_ The others fell silent, though it was clearly with great difficulty, but everyone was paying attention by the time Gav barked out the rest of his orders. "Amaris," he said. "We need to get Lance to our safehouse. Is your Alakazam okay to do it?" Amaris nodded and stepped forward, finally able to release his revived Psychic-type now that the battle was done. While Amaris gave direction to Alakazam and pointed at Lance, Gav finished up the last of his directives. "You," he said to Wyland. "You're coming with us. And you're going to tell us everything."

Wyland said nothing, his face a harrowed, blank mask, but Jason could read the resignation there. Tim took possession of the E4 member's Pokéballs, Amaris' Alakazam returned without Lance, and Orion issued forth the suggestion that they wound up taking.

"Power Plant," he said. "We'll question him there."


	8. The Humane Way :Orion:

Pokémon Azure

Chapter 8: The Humane Way

(Orion Fremont)

The first thing Orion and his team encountered when they teleported their first group into the Power Plant was the remnants of a campsite. Gav, who had been part of the first hop, paused for a full half a minute, staring down at the cleared-off patch of dust-free ground. His head swivelled to scour the room and Orion and he spotted the frosted-over propane canister that had rolled into the corner of the room at the same time. Gav elected to say nothing and instead moved them through the plant with silent efficiency. No one missed it, though. The search team had been there—they couldn't stay long.

Orion was still buzzing hard. Blood thundered fast through his veins in an agitated train wreck, and he hated the feeling as much as he thrived off it. It gave him that familiar laser focus, an unwavering intent to every movement and action, while at the same time robbing him of everything that still made him feel human. He would come down from it in time, but not for a good long while—not with an interrogation right around the corner.

Gav, Victoria, Orion, Zahlia and Tim, the five eldest of their number, quickly established the corridor in which they were going to question Wyland. Orion and Victoria set up a single chair against the far wall of an expansive hallway, and let out their Pokémon to shove some debris to the periphery. The Alakazam that had not been tasked with relocating Lance joined them, along with Tim's Jynx, and waited patiently until the group of five gave the nod that meant they could return to the battle-blasted clearing in the Viridian Forest to bring back the rest of their group. It took barely a moment for Jynx, Alakazam and their secondary Alakazam to appear at their new drop zone with Jason, Gina, Amaris, Blake, Beth, Kaylee and Wyland in tow.

Without a word, Gav gestured toward the chair budged up against the wall. Orion hadn't known what precisely to expect from this encounter. He had more facetime experience with Wyland than the rest of them did, save Tim, but the Ghost trainer had always been a surprising wild card, never fully predictable in any decision.

Wyland walked calmly to the chair and sat in it, resting his arms flat on his thighs and staring at a point on the floor some three feet before him. For a faltering thirty seconds, dead silence reigned, a shocker in and of itself. Orion honestly hadn't expected their group to contain the torrent of questions each member yearned to pile high on the first insider they'd ever been able to nab.

Jason was the first to step forward. "What happened to my Pokémon? And Lance's?" he said, his voice flat and hollow but undeniably threatening. "What did they do?"

To Orion's surprise, Wyland spoke at once. "It's—it's technology that returns a Pokémon forcibly to—"

But Jason cut him off. " _We know that,_ " he snapped, the iota of calm he'd been able to muster up evaporating in a violent rush. "But what happened to Venusaur was more than that, why is he acting this way!?"

Wyland was not necessarily undeterred—he looked quite deterred, in fact, the left half of his face twisting up in a cringing expression even as he rushed to supply the second half of his answer. "It's—the balls used on your Pokémon..." but he fumbled, and when Jason surged forward it was only Gina's hand on his arm that stopped him. Fury and the promise of violence radiated from every cell in his brother's body, but after a pained, protracted moment, Jason allowed himself to be wrangled back so Wyland could gather himself and continue speaking.

"I always knew you had information about this," the Elite Four member mused quietly. "I didn't know how much. You… you're working off of outdated mockups of our tech. It's… expanded, since."

Orion frowned, struggling to understand what this meant. He tuned out a follow-up question from Gav, registered but didn't pay close attention to Wyland's fumbling non-answer in return. There was something skating in the periphery of his mind, an attempt to focus inward and highlight the horrible news he'd delivered to his friends so long ago when he'd returned to them at last. The Five-Step Plan.

Wyland had lapsed into a reluctance to speak further on the subject, but Orion raised his voice, reasonably sure now he had an idea of where this was going. "Are you talking about Masterball tech."

He hadn't even worded it like a question. Wyland's grimace gave them the answer, but after another few seconds, he seemed to realize he had to say it out loud. "Your Pokémon was captured by… by the closest they've ever come to Masterball tech, yes. It's… it's imperfect, there are… side-effects. But I don't know how it possibly could have—"

Jason slammed his fist into the wall by Wyland's head. Wyland was not the only one who flinched away from the loud, echoing sound. Between his teeth, deadly and quiet, Jason said, "Undo it."

Wyland stared at him with unmasked disbelief. "I can't—I don't have the—"

No one could stop Jason as he hauled Wyland out of the chair, kicked it aside, and slammed the smaller man into the wall. Several people lunged forward to stop him even as Jason screamed, " _Then tell me how!_ "

Gina and Amaris hauled Jason back, Gav hoisted Wyland to his feet from where he'd fallen, Beth righted the chair, and Gav dropped him back into it. Wyland stumbled and almost fell, nearly tipping the chair over again in the process.

Dimly, Orion registered that it was strange that he of all people was not intervening to try to reign in his little brother. He stared at Jason's profile, taking in his aggrieved, compromised and wild expression, and watched, utterly mute, as Gina pulled him into her arms. It was less a comforting gesture than one designed to restrict him and keep him from flying apart. Amaris was speaking to the side of Jason's face, but Jason only responded to Gina steadily pulling him back, farther away from Wyland. His expression when he finally turned to look at his best friend was one of desperate terror and absolute, bone-deep fury, but he yielded to her nevertheless.

Tim was the next one to step forward. "What the hell are you doing working with the likes of Owen, Sergio and Glen? How are they involved in this?"

Wyland responded at once, as if to get back in their good books. "They're AGERS—" After a faltering couple of seconds he shook his head. "Sorry. Alpha Gene Experiments. We… we call them AGERS."

"No shit," Kaylee said, her voice flat and deadly. "Where did they take Lance's dragons?"

Wyland's next response was as immediate as his last. "I don't know."

"Bullshit," Victoria spat. "You know and you're going to tell us."

Wyland shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut, lowering his face toward his lap. " _I don't know._ It could have been, they could have gone to a—a number of places."

Gav didn't let even a beat pass. "And those places are?"

But here, suddenly, Wyland was reluctant to say. Looks were shot around the room, various flavors of affronted, confused and frustrated. Somehow Orion knew it was his turn to step forward.

"I know you recognize me," he said softly to the man who still had his eyes pressed shut, refusing to look up. "We may not have interacted much, but I was around enough to suspect that you were involved somehow. Now we know that you were. Why is it you're willing to spill everything else but won't give us a simple location? You have to know we're going to get it out of you one way or another."

Wyland grit his teeth, let out a shaky breath and, amazingly, remained silent. Orion stared down at him, bewildered. From somewhere behind him he could hear Jason's aggrieved, shaky breathing as he tried to get a hold of himself. Orion stared hard at Wyland, wishing more than ever that his Alpha Gene could work as well on people as Pokémon, bending certain individuals to his will. "What in the world is making you keep this, of all things, from us?" he pressed again.

When Wyland snapped Orion was not expecting it. " _Trust me_ , it's for your own good. You don't want to go there."

Kaylee stepped up to his left, her fists clenched at her sides. "Oh, believe me, we do. We'll tell you what we do or don't want to do."

Tim moved in seamlessly to his right, and the three of them formed an impenetrable wall before the man who still wouldn't look their way. "You're not in a place to make conditions."

Yet Wyland only laughed, a bitter, broken, defeated sound, still somehow wry in the face of insurmountable opposition. "You can't win. If you go there you'll be annihilated. Even with three Champs to your name, even with your teams as strong as they are. You'll be wiped off the face of the planet."

Orion could actually hear Kaylee's teeth gritting in her head. "No one's tougher than a group of Champs. They're Champs for a reason."

For the first time, Gina spoke up from behind Orion. "She's right," she said quietly. "Those who beat the Four are considered the strongest trainers in the world. You ought to know that."

Wyland's second chuckle was just as bitter as the first, but softer. "You're right. They're the strongest trainers in the world—who did it the _humane_ way. The people you will encounter if you try to follow them did not."

A prickly, icy silence settled down on the group, and for almost a full minute no one said anything.

Orion shook his head, furrowing his brow and pressing his thumb and forefinger into the bridge of his nose. "I don't understand. How did you even get involved with this in the first place?" He knew it was a tangent in the grand scheme of what they wanted to figure out, but a part of him couldn't help but ask. He had never been, perhaps, as enamored with the E4 as his brother had been growing up, but there was still such a profound, harrowing disappointment in watching a member of Kanto's most exalted leadership all but admitting to working for a man who was evil incarnate.

And Wyland still would not look at them. That, more than anything, heated the blood under Orion's skin. "Judge me all you want," Wyland said, his voice flat. "You'll never know what it's like when you're as completely surrounded as I was."

When Zahlia spoke from directly behind Orion that familiar thrill of pain mixed with exaltation coursed up his spine. He shifted to the side, yielding space to her at once. "So you're telling us that the rest of the League and the other members of the Four are in on this."

Orion wasn't sure what he was expecting from Wyland anymore, but the Ghost trainer shook his head. "No, not entirely. Olivia…" He trailed off, a slight ripple of some kind of grief coursing over his face even though his eyes remained resolutely shut. He was quiet for a full thirty seconds before he continued. "She's the one who got me into this. She's… in it for the money," he said, and it sounded like it cost him something dear to admit that. "For power and influence, though I… I didn't let myself see it before." The scoff he gave next took Orion off-guard, a foreign sound from the meek, mild-mannered man. "She says the Four have an obligation to fund Centers, to keep their doors open through any means necessary. And in a way, she's right. It is our obligation, and it always has been." No one seemed to see fit to interrupt him during this seemingly unrelated monologue, and Wyland finished his thought with, "And another thing is true. Our funds, as of late, have come through illegal means."

The disgust and disappointment that settled in on the group was so thick Orion could almost taste it. Tim was the one who finally spoke, and Orion knew he was summing up the way they all felt. "A part of me still can't believe a member of the Four let himself be lied to in such an obvious way for so long."

Wyland had nothing to say to that, and when he refused to respond, Victoria put her face in her hands and scrubbed hard at her hairline. "You couldn't have possibly believed her," she said, a defeated, miserable tone in her voice. "You said she got you into this in the beginning. It had to have been obvious early on that she was wrong. How could you—"

But Blake cut Victoria off with a sudden, certain alacrity that rooted Orion to the spot. "You're in love with her, aren't you." Orion knew this was not a question, either.

And everyone got to watch as Wyland's face crumbled. How strange, Orion thought, that it was Blake of all people who was able to carve into the heart of the emotion that had made Wyland so weak. Wyland's dark eyes finally cracked open, and though he refused to look any of them in the face, the deadened, self-loathing look of defeat told it all.

After that faltering moment of sheer, crushing disappointment, Tim pushed them forward. "And Lance. What part did he play in this?"

Wyland's voice was as beaten down as his expression now was. "No part. We never intended to keep him long-term. If he found out too much, he'd try to stop us, and we knew he was dangerous. We only told him selective lies to cover what we were really doing and keep him on our side. The… the plan was always to rob him of his dragons in the end. We knew we couldn't beat him otherwise."

Tim's reaction to this was a visceral, physical shudder of purest loathing. Deadly silence coursed through certain members of their group, and those who did not give way to it donned expressions of apprehension and concern, glancing to the faces of those who did.

Orion knew Gav was going to call an end to the interrogation a second before he did. "That's enough for right now," he said softly.

Kaylee was the first to round on him, disbelief etched firmly on her face. "Gav, no," she said, not with anger, but almost a pleading tone. "We can get more out of him. We _need_ to get more out of him."

"Not right now," Gav insisted, turning to his sister with an expression that ached through Orion's chest. It was one he remembered giving Jason many times in their youth—the apologetic, helpless look of an elder sibling who was making a call for the family that he knew would not be understood.

And perhaps the Kaylee of several years earlier would have fought her brother, raged and insisted upon pushing forward mercilessly, but it was a mark of how much she had grown. Her shoulders sagged, clear disappointment flashed across her face, but a second later she set her jaw, looked away, and argued no more.

"He still hasn't told us where Lance's dragons are, or how to fix Venusaur," Jason said, his voice dull, but Orion knew the sound. His brother was teetering on a precipice, and the next several exchanges would determine if he would remain calm and compliant or plummet over the edge into an all-consuming rage.

Gav turned back to Wyland, the hard set of his normally warm brown eyes a deadly and threatening one Orion was not used to seeing on him. "You will tell us what you know about where they might have gone. Make no mistake of that. And please don't assume that in bringing this night to a close I am 'going easy' on you. You're coming with us, and you are going to stay with us until we have what we want from you."

For a man who had just been told he was essentially under house arrest, Wyland did not focus on that. Instead he said, with the air of someone trying to force the words out before he lost his nerve, "I know you have no reason to trust me, but I'm telling you the truth. I am doing you a favor by not saying where they are."

Tim let out a haggard, furious sigh, Kaylee had to physically turn away and walk across the room, probably to prevent herself from doing something rash, and their group fractured off into pieces, each member dealing with the fallout of this surprising dead end in whatever way they could. Orion stayed where he was, as did Tim and Gav, and the three of them fell into an unspoken discussion with Victoria, who had pulled out her phone to contact someone—likely Tim's mother.

Tim spoke first. "We'll sweep him for electronics before we bring him back to our base. That way we won't have to split up our team and have half of us watch him here."

Victoria murmured while looking at her phone, "I know I'm not the only one who saw the propane in the entryway. We've got to get out of here, sooner than later."

Gav nodded dimly, an expression of discomfort flitting across his face. Orion couldn't place it for a moment, but then it dawned on him. The elder Harrison might be inherently uncomfortable that they were talking about somebody literally three feet away like he wasn't there, or wasn't human enough to have an opinion. "And Tim. You'll keep his Pokémon."

Tim nodded, and Wyland closed his eyes again as if praying or meditating. Orion wondered what his happy place looked like, where he could escape from the reality of what he had gotten himself into.

Orion could practically feel the discomfort rippling through their group at what they realized was their next step. They had a prisoner, someone they could not afford to let go, someone they would have to keep questioning until they got what they wanted from him. Orion understood, on one hand, why so many of them would have a real and long-lasting problem with this.

He was not one of them, and he knew, as his eyes flicked over to Tim's profile, that the Champ was another one who wouldn't bat an eye at this development. Perhaps they were actually the only two. Even Jason, as angry as he was, was unlikely to be able to get behind something this extreme in full. But if there was one thing Orion had learned during his year on the run with his father, it was that there was no such thing as the greater good. There was only what one had to do, out of pure necessity, to survive, and to take down those who stood in their way. Everything else was a luxury, and more and more, luxuries were things they could not afford.

* * *

Orion was among the first group of three to be jumped into Mrs. Broome's home. Tim and Kaylee were with him, and Orion knew Gav and Victoria were glued to Wyland's side back at the Power Plant.

Tim's mother was waiting for them in the living room with an arsenal of Pokémon surrounding her. Her blue eyes were the flinty color of her son's for a moment, awaiting trouble and balanced on a knife's edge. When she saw her son and two of her house guests arrive unharmed she relaxed a fraction, but it was only Tim crossing to her that changed her tense expression into one of worry and confusion.

"We've got someone we need… need to keep here," Tim said, and Orion turned so he wouldn't have to see this. This was why the entire Fremont family had been against coming here and dragging their dirt all through Mrs. Broome's life.

Kaylee stepped past him, heading toward Tim and his mother. "I can fill her in on the details. You know the place better. Maybe you and Orion can—can start to set up."

Orion followed her progress for a second, caught the look of deep, tired affection that Tim gave her—and then the world sped up and Tim and he headed away together to set a room up for Wyland.

Orion meant to say something, but not a single thing occurred to him other than an inappropriate not-quite-joke. He was beyond surprised when Tim said almost the same iteration of it in the first room they came across.

"We don't exactly have a 'prisoner-of-war' penthouse suite so… this'll have to do."

"Grievous oversight in the blueprints," Orion huffed out quietly as Tim and he moved around the room seamlessly. It was like they'd planned this in advance—they stripped the spare room of every and anything they could think of that could be crafted into a weapon, or used as a means of escape or communication. Orion paused over things like a brush, and saw Tim do the same with the bed sheets. Ultimately they left enough to make the room habitable, but not so much that it would be a safety risk. Wordlessly they swapped sides of the room to check each other's parts and, finding no fault, took their leave.

Orion, having done his part, stood back as Tim and Gav led Wyland into the room. He had someone's jacket tied around his face. Orion knew Lance was already situated somewhere in the home, so while it felt like their work had only just begun, the big ticket items were handled.

Jason drew closer to his side as the others branched off to make themselves useful. Orion glanced to his brother, watching his tense profile and the way his blue eyes both saw and didn't see the goings-on right in front of him.

He rested a hand on Jason's tense shoulder even though the last thing he wanted was to make contact with anyone. Once he had Jason's attention, he asked, "Want help setting Venusaur up?"

Jason's raw, ragged expression punched a dull hole through Orion's middle, but his brother just nodded mutely. They moved silently off toward the greenhouse, and if Orion hadn't still been so wrapped up in the hot, heady buzz of his alpha gene, he might not have noticed the Nakawas following them. They were that quiet.

No one said anything as they walked. Orion led the way, trying to force himself to snap out of the hard-edged, lingering aggression that refused to abate.

The greenhouse was dark. Orion knew there were lights they could activate, somewhere, but he'd never bothered to ask. Whenever he used these grounds past dark he just left it dark.

Jason branched out into the open field and Orion watched him, taut as a piano wire. He could feel more than hear the Nakawa siblings come to a halt behind him. After a moment, Blake slipped off to his right, mapping areas quietly much the way Jason was doing. It left Orion and Zahlia together, alone, and if Orion felt one kind of silence could outdo another kind, the one they shared reigned supreme.

Zahlia waited until Jason and Blake had returned to step forward, drawing level with Orion but keeping a respectable distance between them. Then she cleared her throat softly the way she did when she needed to command attention and speak loud enough to be heard by a group. "The best course of action here would be to contact Alana. We can see if they still have the plexiglass enclosure Aerodactyl was kept in."

She'd worded it well, neutral language, and her tone was perfect—toeing the line between gentle and logical. In spite of that, Orion knew it was only going to take the tiniest degree of the sting out of Jason. His brother's jaw tensed, and his chest rose and fell slowly but with deep, full breaths, each one designed to try to calm him. It took him a second, but he nodded to Zahlia at last, curtly. Blake, not needing further words, pulled out his phone, and as he dialled it struck Orion that Jason might not want to explain what had happened to Venusaur all over again.

A moment later Zahlia and Orion locked eyes for the first time. He could feel it, the same way he'd feel the tug of the undertow while standing knee-deep in the sea. An unspoken understanding passed between them and Zahlia murmured, "Blake and I can fill her in when she gets here."

The surge of gratitude Orion felt for her in that moment hit him hard and hit him fast, but his stony face didn't show it for a faltering few seconds—and just as he felt the expression of warmth and relief filter onto his features, she turned away, missing it entirely. Orion unstuck his throat, felt the words get trapped in there anyway, but forced them out. "Thank you." From beside him, Jason made a sound that was just a shade kinder than a grunt of acknowledgement.

Orion cleared his throat, tore his gaze away and back the way they'd come. The tiny rectangle of light at the end of the hallway leading away from the greenhouses felt as far away as another world. "Let's go see how Lance is doing," Orion said, the soft strains of Blake's voice filtering over to him from where Zahlia's brother was talking into his cell phone.

Jason glanced his way, his face drawn, pale, haggard and exhausted, but he said nothing. The brothers walked away in silence.

They'd made it almost all the way to the end of the hallway when Nick appeared. The current League Champ looked far too alert for someone who had just been asleep—and Orion figured he probably hadn't been sleeping at all.

"I heard," was all he said. Orion and Jason didn't have to ask what he meant. "I'll help any way I can. We're working out the kinks in the training setup with Zeke's Pokémon. We can adapt those methods to get through to Venusaur."

Orion fully expected Jason to snap—Nick hadn't meant to offend, but fresh from such a horrible trauma, Orion figured comparing Venusaur to Zeke's savage team would go over like a ton of bricks. Instead his brother tightened his jaw, waited a few seconds, then said, "I'm hoping we don't even have to do that. Alana's coming. She can…"

But he trailed off and looked aside, and Orion was glad he did. The look on Nick's face told him all too clearly that the Champ did not believe for a second that Alana would find an instant fix. Instead Nick moved aside, allowing the Fremont brothers to pass, and headed the way they'd come, to the greenhouse.

The heart of the Broome household was eerily empty. Orion knew everyone else was off securing Wyland, briefing Mrs. Broome, or doing several other after-action necessities. Orion wasn't sure where Lance had been taken, but a moment later a door opened upstairs.

Their father peered down at them from the second floor balcony. He said nothing, merely jerking his head toward the door next to his. Orion followed Jason up the stairs and paused by his father the way Jason hadn't. His father met his eyes briefly, and Orion was sure he was the only one who could read the look for what it was. Orion cast his gaze downward for a moment, felt more than saw his father look away too, and let himself into Lance's room after Jason.

Beth, Tim and Gina were inside. Orion had expected to see Lance lying down, out cold, but the Dragonmaster was upright, though leaning heavily against the post at the foot of his bed. Someone had removed his traveling cloak and already snipped off the shirt he wore under that to get a look at his shoulder.

Jason hovered near the door, not crowding those who were sorting out medications and negotiating ice packs, but Lance's haggard face lifted at once to find Jason's.

"Your partner," Lance said at once, even as Gina moved to block him from attempting to stand.

"We're setting up an enclosure for him outside," Jason answered at once. Lance did not rise, but he didn't settle back to make it easier to care for him, either. Orion was honestly surprised that he was even allowing the others to get this close to him at all.

"Everything," Lance said, out of context for a moment before he added, "I need to know everything. What's happened to him—because the same fate may have befallen my companions as well." The League member made a sudden motion as if to stand, and Beth murmured, "Please—just sit for a little longer."

Sitting still was obviously not on Lance's list of priorities, and for a second Orion was convinced he'd shove right past Beth, or at the very least snap at her. But an uncomfortable, crawling second later he sat back on the bed, back still ramrod straight but restless momentum stilled.

Jason spoke before anyone else could. "Did you know about—that device that force-returns a Pokémon to its ball?"

"No," Lance replied swiftly, and Jason seamlessly pushed on.

"What about the machines that make any Pokémon in the immediate area get aggressive?"

"No, though I had suspicions about certain areas," Lance shot back, almost sounding angry with each curt reply, but Orion suspected he was merely speaking as efficiently as possible to trade information fast.

"I'm guessing you've never hear the term 'AGER' or Alpha Gene or Factor A before either," Jason fired back, and quick as a whip, Lance replied.

"Yes to Alpha Gene, once to AGER but I wasn't able to track down what it meant." He gave Jason a serious, level look, and Orion's brother seemed to understand the time for questions had ceased.

"We call the device that force-returns a Pokémon to its ball the Returner," Jason said, establishing terminology first in a way that honestly impressed Orion. Given what had just happened with Venusaur he hadn't expected Jason to want to speak to anyone, let alone explain old concepts over again to new ears. "The one that makes a Pokémon aggressive is the Aggro Device to us. And when we questioned Wyland just now he said what Venusaur was hit with… that was their best attempt at Masterball tech. But we—we discovered that they had problems with the tech before, so it—it affects the trapped Pokémon negatively."

Jason finally started to stumble a little over his words toward the end of his explanation, but Lance and the rest of the room remained perfectly quiet as he spoke. Lance even broke their streak of rapid-fire back-and-forth for the first time when Jason finished, apparently needing a moment to absorb this. The room lapsed into tense silence.

After a moment, Jason spoke up again. "What _did_ you know about?" he asked, stripping the question of any _sirs_ or _if I mays._

Lance didn't even blink at the straightforward, almost offensive question. "Attempts to cleanse captured Pokémon of the chemical agent used in Silph balls. The work being done to revolutionize the face of training. Which is becoming all too clear to me now as a lie." There was so much to take in there, but Lance didn't let anyone ask. "Reversing what's been done to our companions—"

Jason actually cut him off. "We don't know how yet, but we have a contact who's our best bet at figuring that out. She should be here by now."

"Take me to her," Lance commanded, and as he moved to rise once more the others moved to stop him.

Suddenly feeling very much like an extra spectator, Orion slipped quietly from the room, closing the door behind him. His jaw ached—it took him a moment to realize it was because he was clenching his teeth.

Lance had thought the "work" being done was to revolutionize the way Pokémon training was done—and he'd had, at a very generous estimate, 25% of the total knowledge they'd amassed. That was both painfully daunting and oddly a relief. Several of their numbers had hoped as much—that the most senior and powerful member of the E4 had merely been lied to and kept in the dark… not in on everything from the very beginning. Orion's skull ached as he absently made his way back out to the greenhouse.

As Jason had predicted, Alana was there. Standing beside her, blond hair a deplorable wreck, was Casey, which also wasn't so shocking. What Orion hadn't expected was the plexiglass enclosure so soon—it had happened in record time.

"Orion," Alana said, her voice haggard the way a sleeper's was when awoken too soon and by startling news. "Everyone's okay?"

"Lance got battered up a little, but nothing more than surface wounds for the rest of—of our human team members," Orion murmured, needing to amend his statement halfway through and hating that.

Alana's face twisted into an expression of grimacing worry veiled under her top coat of exhaustion. "It's bad?" she asked.

"At the level of Zeke's Pokémon," Orion said, to give her a dismal but accurate frame of reference. Then, partly to change the subject, "How on earth did you set this all up so quickly?"

"Been ready to go and mobile with this guy since the first detox shot," she explained. Her brown eyes lingered for an uncertain moment on his face, but she seemed to accept the topic change and glanced instead at the enclosure. "Figured you might end up needing it if any of the possible detox side effects did crop up." Orion nodded distantly, the dark humor not lost on him. Just when it seemed they were in the clear from this type of disaster, the fallout blast always seemed to knock them off their feet from a wholly unexpected direction.

A part of him didn't want to jump into this part of the night, but Orion knew it wouldn't get any better if he put it off. He tugged his battered phone out of his pocket and typed up a message to Jason with one hand.

 _Pen is here._

Jason appeared less than a minute after Orion hit "send." He'd half-expected to see Lance in tow, tailed by fretting members of his medical brigade, but Jason was alone. There was a tense silence as he approached, but Jason broke it as soon as he drew level, apparently still in the mood for haste.

"I'm not going to just shove him in there and slam the door." He wasn't looking at anyone, instead fixing his hard blue eyes on the enclosure like he was making this appeal to it instead.

Orion interrupted anything else he might have been gearing up to say. "That's the only option. You can't go in there with him."

Jason narrowed his eyes, but still didn't look at Orion. "When he got released after the fight… we were still in the aftermath of it. It probably made his reactions way worse. I need to try."

Orion felt a kick of pure rage mingled with a disbelief that really shouldn't be there by now. Jason's stubbornness was nowhere near new, and Orion knew it would be kinder—wiser, too—to be patient and combat this foolish idea with logic. But his blood thundered through his veins and what came out of his mouth was harsh, acidic aggression. "You've got to be kidding me. There's no way in the world you can possibly be serious right now."

Jason finally snapped his gaze over to meet Orion's, his jaw set and his face full of a contrary, stony fury. The words, "I'll be fine," were spat out like an insult versus a reassurance.

"Bull," Orion bit back, but Casey stepped in a second later.

"Compromise? Is the spice of life? Or variety, whatever, but for right now it's compromise. Jason, if you just use the aiming laser and send Venusaur in there, it'll give us a chance to assess his state, yeah? Then if it's safe, you can maybe—"

"He's not going in there, period," Orion snapped even as Jason gritted out, "fine." Jason glared at his brother, eyes snapping wide with affront, and Orion reiterated. "You're not going in there."

"First step, okay?" Alana groaned. "Let's at least make it to that point."

Jason held Orion's gaze for several more seconds, but at last he blinked first and switched focus to the cage instead. He sucked in a deep breath, aimed the strange new ball at the enclosure—and nothing happened. "Shit," he growled, pulling the ball back to hold it in both hands. "Maybe this style doesn't… have an aiming laser…" He lapsed back into frustrated silence and fumbled with it until Orion's agitated nerves couldn't take it anymore.

"Don't," Orion said, drawing nearer and internally cringing even as he did so. He hadn't meant for that single word to come out so harsh, but it had, and Jason reacted to it.

"I'm _fine,_ " he snarled, but a new voice intervened from behind them.

"If the aiming laser doesn't work, throwing it won't, either." Nick had joined them, circling around to the left of the quarreling brothers with a weary expression. "Given the look of that thing, it was a rush job. Bare-bones minimum… no impact trigger. Orion—you're the one who needs to go in there with the ball." He added quickly for the benefit of the others, especially Jason, "He's the only one who can release Venusaur and subdue him for the few seconds it'll take to get back out."

A flare of vindictive satisfaction warred bitterly with shame inside Orion. So his Alpha Gene was good for something, once in a very blue moon.

Jason's misgivings were only too clear, but after a faltering pause, his stiff shoulders sagged. Orion didn't hold his hand out for the botched Masterball. He waited for Jason to offer it up to him. When his brother finally did, Orion couldn't catch his gaze. Jason was staring resolutely and with clear conflict at Orion's collarbone instead.

Orion gripped the cold metal sphere in one hand and wasted no time making his way a safe distance into the enclosure. He was never sure if he imagined it, but when he was coming down off the heady buzz of the alpha gene, other people's tension seemed as tangible as wading through tar. He cast only a short glance back at the door of the pen, gauging the distance he'd have to dart back to escape. Then he crouched, legs tense and body poised, ready to bolt, and jammed the button.

The roar was instantaneous and deafening. Orion was running backwards even before the red shape was done forming—but Venusaur was moving, too. Red vines snapped out to either side of him as Orion dove for the door, and then the red bled to green and he was snapped up in the deadly hold.

Flight had been utterly eliminated as an option—and like a needle finding a groove, Orion switched tac on a dime to fight. Furious, focused aggression tore a wicked path through Orion's veins as he turned back toward Venusaur, locking his gaze on the Pokémon and doing the exact opposite of what any sane person would do. He surged forward to do head-to-head battle with the creature who could easily kill him, a snarl tearing its way from his throat that was utterly drowned out by Venusaur's renewed reverberating howl.

For one of the only times he could recall, a curl of real fear stole through Orion's chest, cutting through even the crimson haze of the gene. Fear was weakness—weakness was not something he could afford to broadcast right now.

From behind him he could hear, dimly and as if muffled through water, the sounds of people shouting and scuffling. Even as he stared down the murderous Grass-type that had him in a deathly tight bind, he prayed viciously to whoever was listening that the others could keep his brother at bay.

 _Stand down,_ Orion thought, not needing to voice the command aloud. Every fiber of his being screamed it. Venusaur's magenta eyes bore an invisible film of madness across them, rage and fear and violence burned into the color Orion had never dreamed could be that frightful.

The vines that wound tightly around his waist, biceps and thighs hurt—but one fact stood out to him in a way that was simultaneously terrifying and buoying— _if he really wanted to… I'd already be dead._ It felt like lifetimes had elapsed by the time the vines twitched, shuddered and slackened around him just a touch.

Orion wasted no time. He thrashed in a jerky but calculated twist, freeing himself and diving aside. A roar shook the still air as he bolted for the door, and he was barely out when Venusaur slammed his whole body into the still-open door. The plexiglass thundered with the deafening impact and when Orion rolled aside it was to the sight of Venusaur doing his absolute damnedest to bust his way out through the human-sized entryway.

There would be no way in hell to close the door with him pressed up against it like that, face half out, maw cracked wide and murderous roars splitting the night.

But the Champs had a solution. A guttering rush of water slammed into Venusaur's open mouth, shoving Jason's starter clear across the muddy grass inside the pen. Not a second later Jason was there, throwing his body brutally against the clear door and ramming it shut. He threw the large metal bolt down as Venusaur righted himself, sank to his knees in the mud and charged. Jason didn't even flinch as his first Pokémon crashed headlong into the wall, only one sheet of reinforced barrier keeping him and Jason apart.

Venusaur roared, spittle striking the enclosure, and shoved his way forward with as much force and traction as he could manage in the mud. Jason just stared, the expression on his face anyone's guess, and as Orion watched, blood and adrenaline still screaming inside him, his brother slowly rested his forehead against the pen.

* * *

 _Author's note: Seven days into Camp NaNoWriMo and I busted out the end of chapter 9, all of chapter 10, and the start of chapter 11. 834 words a day isn't so bad! It's actually a pretty doable long-term goal for me, so we'll see if I can keep that up!_


	9. Mirror :Blake:

Pokémon Azure

Chapter 9: Mirror

(Blake Nakawa)

Blake knew he had a great poker face. It was part a Nakawa thing, part something his own personality enhanced. In spite of it all, he was hard-pressed—beyond so—to keep himself from leaping aside each time that murderous bird made a lunge for him. It was only his absolute trust in Grumpy that kept him from jumping ten feet straight back every time "his" Fearow tried to snap his head from his shoulders with that long, deadly beak. Grumpy intervened without fail each time, tasked with the thankless job of helping to "train" the creature that had as good as killed Blake's brother.

Zeke, Blake corrected. As good as killed Zeke.

The Fearow screamed, an almost human sound of mad, blind hate. It darted erratically skyward, skimming long wings against the roof of the training room they'd monopolized for days. Blake never flinched, but he couldn't help the silent intake of harsh breath or the twitch of one eye as the Fearow careened over Grumpy, straight for him—only to be blocked halfway by a brutal Tackle interception.

He knew it was bad form, unfair—but he couldn't help it. Blake hated the damned thing with every ounce of himself. The birds collided mid-air and Blake took several cautious steps back, never boxing himself into a corner but never letting the battle out of his sight.

When it was time to lay this fool's errand to rest, Blake waited until the Fearow's back was to him. He quick-drew the copper ball at his belt, recalled Fearow in a flash, and made tired, grim eye contact with his exhausted oldest team mate. "Thanks for trying," he said, voice flat. "Sorry."

A handful of reasons stopped him every time Blake wanted to give up. Given their terrifying and ever-expanding list of enemies, Blake desperately needed more team members who could pack a punch. There was weird guilt—what were his other options, locking the Fearow away in its ball forever? As awful as living with Zeke had surely been, at least with its old trainer the Fearow had enjoyed frequent bouts outside its ball's confines.

That was the crux of Blake's third reason for persisting even when all logic told him to stop. It was something to do with Zeke—his dead half-brother's face always appeared to him when he most wanted to give in. Blake never let himself examine that too closely. He didn't know if it was a competitive edge, a weird sense of obligation or something else… and he refused to dwell.

His "training session" was done for the day, and not a moment too soon. Blake had about fifteen minutes left before the meeting. It was one he felt tentatively hopeful about, for once, despite the fact they'd had no luck at all with Wyland.

Blake's mother was coming. The decision to include her hadn't come easily, but in the end she was too valuable a resource to leave untapped. Blake wondered if someday telling himself that would help. Even after several days to get used to the idea, the prospect of seeing her again filled him with a blend of dread and a stifled longing. Now she'd be arriving any minute, and Blake knew Zahlia was probably already waiting for him outside the training room.

Sure enough, his sister turned to glance his way as he pushed the door open. She'd had her back turned to him, facing the rest of the empty hallway, and she cut the figure of a petite door guard because of it. A vague wisecrack drifted into his mind and he watched it drift away.

"Hallway near the living room, yeah?" Blake asked, just to have something to say. He knew perfectly well where they'd be meeting their mother. Zahlia nodded as they fell into silent stride together.

Thankfully, no one else was present in the designated drop zone when they arrived. Blake half expected to spot a velvet rope across the walkway complete with a sign: "Reserved: Uncomfortable Nakawa Family Reunion attendees only."

At least they didn't have long to stew in their tension. Barely two minutes had elapsed when Jason's Alakazam appeared, their frail but unsinkable mother grasping gently to his arm. The first thing Blake noticed was the absence of her taupe wrist braces. The second was the unshed tears that sprang at once to her eyes.

Zahlia and he lurched forward in uncertain half-steps, pulled forward on a tether as much as they were held back by their nerves, but their mother closed the space between them and took the matter out of their hands. Both children were considerably taller than the woman who enfolded them in her shaky yet solid embrace, but as Blake bent lower to hug her back, Zahlia's bony shoulder digging into his arm, he felt like a child.

Not a single person actually shed any tears. When their mother released them and took a step back, her dark eyes still shone, but there was an undeniable steadiness there, too. She rested the cold fingers of her right hand against Blake's cheek, which all at once felt too hot by comparison. He saw her do the same to Zahlia out of the corner of his eye. No one spoke.

In that moment Blake decided something he'd probably known for weeks, but only now pushed its way to the forefront of his mind. He'd rather die than tell either of them about the visions of Zeke he'd had during Wyland's Hypnosis attack.

As one, the Nakawas moved off to the living room. Blake heard his friends before he saw them. Kaylee was laughing at something—probably Beth—but stifled herself quickly and instead answered in a low murmur. This hospital waiting room atmosphere extended to the others, too—he could make out Gav's low timbre and Victoria's smooth tones in quiet conference, Gina's voice raising just loud enough for one word to be heard (" _still,_ ") but not much else. They were more than safe enough to be loud in this home, but it was harder and harder to let that guard down after each close scrape.

When the Nakawas entered the room several faces turned their way. Gav smiled, warm, tired, maybe a touch awkward, and Blake suddenly remembered he'd been the one to give Zeke the only shot at a eulogy he'd had. Some of the others lifted their hands in greeting to Nancy, but Beth was the one who actually came over.

"Hi—" Beth began, cutting herself off after only the one word with an uncertain furrow to her brow. "Should I… what should I call…?"

"Oh," Blake's mother said, catching on to Beth's dilemma and smiling at her in the warm, effortlessly genuine way neither of her children could emulate. "It's weird? Too weird? To call me Nancy?" she asked, looking to Beth as if for a cue.

"Nancy's fine!" Beth said, lighting up and falling into the conversation like it was a smooth dive from the highboard without even a ripple in the waters below. "Just wanted to make sure that was okay."

"You can say, 'hey you!' and that's okay," his mother said, eyes crinkling almost shut with her smile. "Anything's better than _Mrs. Nakawa_."

"Um, yeah!" Beth agreed with comedic emphasis, and Blake's mother laughed aloud at the look on her face. "I'd imagine so!"

Grateful to Beth for helping to make his mother feel less out of place, Blake allowed himself to slip away from the discussion himself. Zahlia, Beth and his mother stuck close together while he slid along the wall, trying to find a place to sit that was out of the way of direct traffic. He rolled his stiff, tense shoulders as he scouted. They hurt on and off no matter how much he stretched, and being crammed close to this many people didn't help. There was more than enough space to roam, but with the proceedings starting so soon everyone had begun to orbit in closer.

Blake wasn't the sort of person to bother himself with headcounts, so it wasn't him who discovered they were down a member. Victoria, who was standing on one of the stairs to get a better look at their gathered group, frowned. Her quick fingers seemed to play the piano in midair as she tallied up faces. "Where's Amaris?" she called out to whoever could hear. Kaylee, Orion, Jason and Gina glanced around the room in different directions, peering into the corners, but after a second Jason answered.

"Don't know."

"Maybe he's sleeping," Gina said, her voice unusually flat.

Kaylee frowned. "Why would he be? He has insomnia, doesn't he? He never sleeps."

"I'll go check," Gina said, climbing past Victoria up the stairs. The elder Larson stepped aside to make room for her, though she needn't have with how expansive all the stairwells and hallways were.

While Gina was gone Blake took a seat on the floor, his back pressed against the wall to the left of the stairwell. Victoria, spotting this, stepped down from the last stair and cast him a small, vaguely amused stare. "We've got chairs, you know," she said.

"Thanks for the life-changing info," he replied, deadpan but smirking just a little to let her know he was ribbing her. Victoria gave a put-upon sigh, rolling her eyes, and smiled as she walked away.

Other than their core group, the gathered lot was expecting five additional members. Nathan Fremont was not among that number, and to hear it told, he was doing his best to sleep through a particularly bad bout of Factor A withdrawals upstairs. Blake's mother was already in attendance, as was Lance. The Dragonmaster was keeping to himself on the periphery, his arm in a sling and a crutch resting against a large, plush chair. It had clearly been brought out just for him to sit in and he was just as clearly not going to use it. Nick and Casey were on their way, last Blake had heard, and with them would be a fifth member whom had never officially sat among their ranks before.

Gina popped her head out of the stairwell, glanced around for Victoria, and failing at finding her delivered her message to Blake instead. "Yeah… he was totally sleeping. I woke him up, he'll be down soon."

Blake wasn't sure why Gina felt the need to inform him of this, but nodded to make her feel better. Perhaps Amaris' sudden upswing in rest sounded unusual to Kaylee, but Blake understood. There was nothing depression loved more than sleep.

He spotted Gav's secondary headcount of the room and kept his eyes on him, knowing the elder Harrison was going to interrupt the sidebars again in a second. Gav raised his hand above his head a moment later and the room fell silent in waves.

"Something to discuss before the others get here. This base… we've got to address the fact that it may have been compromised." The small silence lasted for just a beat. Then Tim, Kaylee and Victoria all tried to speak at once. In the jumble of aborted sentences and shuffling, Kaylee got the first question.

"So Tim—what are the odds those three know your mom lives here?"

Victoria nodded and tacked on, "My question was along the same lines, only, it would be good to know how many people know this is a Broome residence period."

Tim's expression was a touch wary and unhappy, but when he replied it was steady and certain. "Some Pewter natives know, of course. This used to be an inn for traveling trainers to crash in when the Centers were full. But not all of those trainers necessarily knew that it was my mother who ran it."

Kaylee nodded, brow furrowed with conflicted worry. In the tiny silence that followed Tim's explanation, Amaris slipped soundlessly into the room. It took a few seconds more for Gav to speak up again.

"So it wouldn't be too difficult for someone to get that information out of a trainer who did know."

Blake knew his prickly silences when he heard them. Vowing to stay out of this, he shifted his gaze instead toward Tim, who'd set his mouth in a displeased line.

"I'm against us relocating again," he said, favoring a sudden bluntness that Blake appreciated. "It took this group so long to get here. Anywhere new you go will have the same issues you faced before—all the problems that drove you out of the Power Plant. Which we can't even return to because they've staked that site out already."

His logic was sound, but the others' worries were equally valid, and just as Blake began to despair that this would turn into a true and lasting stalemate, their final guests arrived.

There was a rush of displaced air and three young men appeared in the middle of the room with them. Casey was on the left, clad in screaming pink for some reason, Nick on the right with what looked like an untameable cowlick in his dark hair and a decidedly ruffled appearance. Sandwiched between them was William Trentolds.

Tim crossed to the other three Champs and gave them a tired, but grateful grin. "Safe travels?" he joked.

"Oh, the usual," Nick said, cracking a grin. "Some kid behind me wouldn't stop kicking my seat."

"Sorry about that," Trentolds said, and it was only from the context of the comment that Blake could tell he was joking. The man should be an honorary Nakawa from how serious his delivery was.

All at once it seemed to hit them as a unit that everyone they were waiting for had arrived. Just like that the few sidebars that had started up fell away and the group refocused inward.

"How's it going with Wyland?" Nick asked, slipping his hands into the pockets of his trenchcoat.

"Not… great," Kaylee admitted. "He's really determined not to talk."

"That's both surprising and not surprising," Casey muttered. "He never really struck me as having much of a backbone… but at the same time, he's been weirdly stubborn on certain issues in the past."

"Great," Jason intoned dully. "You wouldn't happen to have any tricks up your sleeves that would make him talk?"

"The only trick up my sleeve is a shock buzzer," Casey said apologetically. "Sorry, man." There weren't any laughs at that, but one or two people smiled in a tired way.

"One thing I did want to talk about," Gav mentioned, "are the three people who attacked us. Glen, Owen and Sergio. What do we need to know about them?"

All four Champs present in the room scowled as one, each of their faces a sliding scale in expressiveness. Trentolds' features were the most subdued, Casey's the least, but the takeaway was unanimous. "Yeah," Nick said. "That's as good a place as any to start." He paused, then glanced around to Casey and Tim. "Should we, uh… divvy this up?" Like some messed up primary school presentation?"

Casey grinned. "Sure. Each one of these psychopaths is sort of… 'our' psychopath."

"Creepy," Tim noted. "I'll go first. Owen McCarty… I know Kaylee and Beth saw the whole clip of my fight with him in 2041, but to recap…" He paused, dragged a hand through his dishevelled brown hair, and sighed before continuing. "He seemed more or less normal at the time. Haughty, sure. But tons of challengers are like that. I could see he was getting nervous as the fight wore on… visibly upset, I mean… but that's normal, too. Things really took a turn with his Dragonite. If I look back on it now, though… there were signs that the rest of his team wasn't acting right, too." There was a subtle trace of old bitterness and regret in Tim's voice.

Nick gave his friend a sad smile. "Hindsight is 20/20."

"Yeah," Tim agreed, though there wasn't a lot of feeling behind the word. He went on. "I kept tabs on what was happening with him as much as I could. Was told he'd probably do time for the shit he pulled at the League. I've never been able to figure out just how he ended up walking."

"I'm thinking insanity plea, then slipped away while they were working out his treatment plan," Nick said. "It's what… uh, 'my' guy did."

"To be fair," Casey cut in, "your guy was genuinely insane."

"Wait," Kaylee said, a frown touching her brow. "Nick, I thought Glen was just… a technical-Champ-but-not-really who was sore because you took the title back so fast."

"That's all true," Nick said. "But there's a bit more to it than that. Yes, Glen wasn't actively violent to me during that first fight. But when I came back and took back the title—"

"—He didn't even get into the HOF—" Casey interjected, before he covered his mouth. "Sorry, Nick, go."

"No, it's cool, that's important," Nick said encouragingly. "It's true. Because I forfeited—something that's never been recorded in the League before—it was decided Glen would have to come back and earn the title and the HOF seat in an actual defeat. And… well. He was never quite able to."

"Not for lack of trying," Tim grumbled. "Though I only actually fought him the one time."

At the curious looks that got, Nick elaborated. "Glen sort of has a special grudge against me and only me. It's not enough for him to just earn the title anymore. He specifically feels he must earn it from me."

"He pitched a royal fit when he got past the 4 one time only to find Tim was the Champ that day," Casey remarked. "Guess last he'd heard, it was supposed to be Nick. Makes sense why he went so cattywampus when he found out."

Nick mouthed the word, _cattywampus_ to himself, giving Casey serious side-eye, but Blake wanted to hear more about this specific challenger. "You call Glen a 'psychopath.' Seems like a strong word for an overly-motivated contender."

Nick, far from looking affronted, just grin-grimaced Blake's way. "Seemed like just an overly-motivated contender for a while there, but sometime between him showing up at my computer repair shop reeking like he hadn't bathed in months and sending me death threats in the mail… I think he earned that new title."

There was a hush of discomfort and crawling dread that slid across the room, but Nick shook his head. "All things considered, I wouldn't be so worried about Glen, specifically. Kind of just… got to add his brand of murderously crazy to the list of people to watch out for." Blake knew that should have been objectively depressing, but somehow framed that way it felt more like comfort through logic.

Apparently Victoria did not agree. "Super," she said. "Casey, you're last, I believe?"

Casey blinked and hiked his eyebrows up, like he'd been caught unprepared for a pop quiz. "Oh, me? My guy's Sergio. He never made it past Lance, screamed abuse at his Pokémon, I punched him in the face. The end!"

"Also he skipped out on his anger management. The _actual_ end!" Nick added. Casey chucked a throw pillow at him.

"Well," Gav said, with the tone of someone sorry that he had to ruin a mood of levity, "It sounds to me like each of these three challengers sort of has a grudge against one of you three in particular."

"Accurate," Nick said. "We've got our own supervillains." He was smiling, but his tone was nowhere near amused. "What's… good, though, is I think they'll underestimate you." He directed this in a more open way to encompass the others seated around them. "They're arrogant… all three of them, in their own way. Hopefully it'll mean they won't focus on the rest of you as much."

"And then you can enjoy the look on their faces when you wipe the floor with them," Casey said, with a lot more confidence in them than Blake necessarily felt.

A voice spoke up from just behind Blake and he just barely managed not to twitch. "That's assuming we can do that." Amaris had repositioned himself closer at some point, and Blake had to grudgingly assign him Nakawa Points for having snuck up on him so utterly. "Our teams are powerful, objectively. But we could use more training against this…" Blake turned to glance at Amaris out of the corner of his eye and caught the redhead scrubbing a hand over his face. "This… ever-expanding cavalcade of enemies."

There was another crawling silence. "I'd say I don't want to delay our plans to train…" Kaylee started.

Beth finished for her. "But it's not like we can exactly move forward right now, anyway. Not without knowing where we're supposed to go."

"Which brings us back to Wyland," Jason muttered, his usually carrying voice harder to hear than normal. He looked simultaneously exhausted and tense, his eyes half-squinted like there was something vaguely bright in the room with him.

This was chief among their least favorite topics, and Blake had to wonder if it was a calculated move when Beth asked, "Say, Nick. I've been wondering… who's standing in for Wyland and—and Lance?" At the last second she turned to include Lance in her line of sight, slight discomfort on her face. It was eerily easy to forget that the most famous man in Kanto sat silent and surly in their presence.

"No one, presently," Nick explained. "Closed for business. It's close enough to an off-season that we can get away with that."

Trentolds hadn't spoken up at all yet, which wasn't of itself unusual, but he appeared to have news on this front. "No one's talking to the League about any of this, either. I asked around—just to see how much they'd disclose to the Champs—but no one's talking. I'm not the only one asking, either. All League members I've spoken with have been given the same story—closing early for the season as some E4 members have 'personal matters' to attend to." There were more than a few disgusted huffs around the room.

"Has the PLF been asking you to put your League feelers out and report any weird news back to them?" Nick asked, leveling a shrewd look at Trentolds.

"Yes, but… the PLF…" Trentolds started, trailing off before he found the words he wanted. "They're… still trying to figure out what they want to do. In light of your group being publicly outed."

Blake was not the only one who frowned at that, not at all sure how this directly impacted the PLF at all, but Trentolds elaborated. "The 'upper echelon,'" he said, giving that air quotations, "might be against getting involved, but not everyone feels that way. In light of Pallet, however, they're at a familiar PLF standstill. So, yes. Intel-gathering."

Blake rolled his eyes and listened to the wave of exasperated sounds that drifted through the room again. It was disappointing news, but not surprising. Blake's eyes slid over to Amaris, and something occurred to him as he stared at the vacant-eyed, exhausted redhead. It was beyond strange to him that WTF hadn't tried to reach out to Amaris or Tim even once since the Pallet disaster, not even to check to see if they were okay.

"So what you're saying is that we can't count on them," Gav said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Not that any of this reflects on you. Thanks for the information." Trentolds just nodded and lapsed into silence.

"I take it they don't know you're here," Victoria said, and Trentolds nodded before he seemed to realize that could be taken both ways.

"They don't know I'm here," he elaborated.

"One way or another," Kaylee said, speaking up from an armchair she had compactly folded herself into, "we need more help." There was a tiny ripple of discomfort on the faces around them, but no one spoke up to argue. "It's unavoidable," Kaylee continued. "Even if you don't think you can get the PLF to help us…"

"I'll keep trying," Trentolds promised.

"Thanks," Kaylee said. "I mean, the PLF are some of the only people who are already involved. They already know what's going on… they're the best allies we have to try to secure. It would mean we won't have to rope anyone else in who doesn't need to be."

Blake would have missed it if he hadn't been looking in Beth's direction at that exact moment. The Water-trainer's shoulders hunched in, and she folded down in on herself as if under an invisible weight. Blake frowned, wondering if something unrelated had occurred to her, or if this miserable reaction was somehow connected to what Kaylee had just said.

"Who else do we know who's already informed?" Orion wondered aloud.

"Dasten," Tim said, though even he sounded reluctant.

An uncomfortable silence fell on their group again, and while Blake couldn't blame them for it, it was frustrating. They'd endured a half hour meeting after weeks of agonizing to even relocate here, and he honestly expected more of the same for each and every new person they roped into their cause.

So when Gav said, "I know this sounds ten shades of insane, but we need to do more active recruiting," Blake thought he must have misunderstood him.

"Uhh?" Kaylee said from her armchair, sitting up straighter and looking at Gav with clearly the same misgivings.

Gav huffed out a rough sigh. "I know. From me, of all people… I know. But we need leadership. We need more players on our side."

"Leadership?" Victoria repeated, her face showing a lack of understanding, but a second later something dawned on her. "You mean…" Gav nodded, but it was Zahlia who voiced the realization to the rest of their group.

"We need to figure out which of the Gym Leaders are trustworthy," she guessed, and when Gav nodded, an amazed, tentative quality colored their previously sad silence.

Casey crossed his arms but was wearing a smile. "Huh," he said, looking at Gav as if reassessing him somehow. "Well, you won't get any arguments from me."

"Nor me," Nick agreed, slipping his hands back into the pockets of his coat and giving their number a fond, if still weary smile. "So, where do you want to start—who do you think you can trust, beyond a shadow of a doubt?"

"Armstrong," Kaylee and Gav said in unison. The siblings glanced at each other and smiled softly.

Gina nodded from where she had taken up a perch on the other side of the stairwell, looking like Blake's twin gargoyle guarding the entryway. "He pretty much raised you guys, right?" she asked.

Kaylee nodded. "I don't know that there's anyone else I can think of off the top of my head who I'd be fully comfortable bringing onboard."

There was general silence from the rest of their group. "Well," Gav said, "maybe Armstrong will be able to point us in the right direction. He's been on the Gym Leader circuit for years."

"He might have been able to tell us that we couldn't trust Whittaker-Cheng," Jason commented with a touch of regret.

Victoria was doing finger math again. "Kaylee, Gav, Tim? Why don't we have the three of you go talk to him. You're our Pewter natives—you all know him."

The Harrisons exchanged a look with Tim. "Fine by me," Gav said.

Blake wasn't sure why it struck him suddenly that Lance had been quiet this entire time, but the second he glanced at the Dragonmaster he knew the older man was going to throw a harpoon into the tentative hopeful momentum they were enjoying.

"As there wasn't exactly a meeting agenda passed out," Lance began slowly, and just like that the entire room shut up. His rough, low voice commanded the entire space and everyone present without a single hitch. "... I'm curious when we'll cover countermeasures for the tech that's stolen my teammates and debilitated his." He jerked his head in Jason's direction.

There was a stuttering silence, and then three people tried to speak at once. After awkward deferring and shuffling around the order in which they'd speak, Gav started.

"That _is_ something we need to address. Silph and the syndicate are clearly working on—on Masterball tech to the best of their abilities. It's imperfect, but it _does_ work in at least one of its intended ways. It traps 'wild' Pokémon with ease—and since we detoxed our teams, they're effectively wilds now." Blake could've done without the recap, but realized a second later why he was doing it. Trentolds and his own mother were likely still very much in the dark about this.

Sure enough— "I'd heard that the head researcher at Pallet was helping you with that tech… and the detoxification process," Trentolds said. "But this… this downside. This is an _extreme_ downside. It calls into question if it's even worth it to keep your teams detoxed."

Blake opened his mouth, but nothing came out. All around the room the others wore similar looks of vague stupefaction.

"... That… well," Victoria said, clearing her throat and going a little pink. "That's an… elegant solution to the problem."

"Which none of us had thought up before," Gina added from beside Blake, giving Trentolds a sheepish grin. "How much are we paying you? We'll have to double it."

"My first raise," Trentolds said with that quiet, deadpan humor that spoke to Blake's own black soul. "I'll try not to blow it all in one place."

"I'll get Alana on the phone," Casey offered at once, punching a single key on his cell and holding it up to his ear as he retreated from the group.

"Agenda item checked off," Kaylee joked a little weakly, eying Lance, who didn't look back at any of them. His eyes were fixed remotely on the window, though the blinds were drawn shut.

There was a lingering awareness that, while this revelation would help their group, it would do nothing to aid Lance. Blake was sure it was only years of experience and the patience that (sometimes) came with age that was stopping him from bringing this up.

Nick had picked up on it, too. "We need to address their tech in general. Look into ways to scramble those Returners. Gav?"

"Still up to my eyes with the teleporters, but this is actually a higher priority now. And hell, since I've already been working on ways to scramble and jam up enemy teleporters, may as well look into ways to jam the Returner tech at the same time."

A thought drifted across Blake's mind and for the first time since he joined the meeting he felt he could contribute. "I'll bring my dad on board… he's good with tech." In the answering, protracted silence that followed and under the heat of several intensely confused looks, Blake realized what was going on. He experienced a genuine jaw-drop. " _My_ dad! Vaughn Nakawa is not my father. Jesus Christ, guys."

There were scattered laughs and a few jokes Blake caught as the weird tension in the room broke and gave way to humor. Beth's in particular startled an honest laugh out of him.

"Jenkins, I've received an invite to the renegade group's tech hour. We'll have to reschedule my Tuesday repose over a cliff!"

* * *

Blake was pleased that he hadn't been wrong with his tentative hope for this meeting. So hot on the heels of such a series of shocks and disappointments, they'd still managed to come away with a feeling of progress. Tim, Kaylee and Gav would head to the Gym to talk with Armstrong—Casey, Nick and Alana would figure out the best way to temporarily "retox" their teams to protect against Masterball tech—Blake would reach out to his father—and they'd all focus on training and leveling as much as possible.

It didn't completely take away the sting of Wyland's continued silence, but at least they no longer felt like all momentum was halted due to one deadend.

Trentolds took his leave, but with the understanding he was welcome to stay the night whenever it was convenient, and would check in as often as he could regarding his own side job—assisting Tim with figuring out where James Dasten had gotten to when he'd fallen off the grid.

Nancy was staying with them. She'd been quiet and attentive throughout the proceedings, always just slightly frowning. Some mistook it for her struggling with a language barrier, but Blake knew better. His mother's mind was an ever-expanding kaleidoscope of new ideas and insights building on old knowledge and experience. She was frequently burning wood on several different topics down many different interrelated rabbit trails in her mind. It was that brilliant and innovative mind they were preparing to use now to tackle another ongoing issue.

"So your mind and his mind—so far, seems like it's one-way, yeah?" his mother asked him, rolling one wrist slowly while the fingers of her other hand clasped it tight.

"So far, yeah," Blake said. They were back in the training room, Zahlia and Gengar watching from the side.

"And when you link," she continued, but paused. "Aiyah. Going to sound weird. When you link… do you… feel like you're you?"

Blake frowned, but the confusion only lasted for a moment before he realized what she meant. "Oh. No… I guess, no. Not always. It isn't like I'm floating there off to the side with a bowl of popcorn watching him terrorize his lackeys."

His mother's serious expression melted into a look of fond humor. "Funny boy," she said in a way Blake knew to be high praise. Humor was yet another skill their mother was convinced she didn't have. "But that's good… well, not 'good' but, that tells me things."

She turned to Gengar and motioned for him to come. He did, no muss or fuss, and met Blake's gaze with his own somber one. Blake still didn't like the personality change he'd undergone. Nancy conferred with Gengar for a moment and Blake allowed himself to zone out. Zahlia, he noted, was watching their mother with undisguised intensity. Blake wondered why, a second before he realized he was missing it. This was a rare opportunity to actually see their mother at work. She was a genius when it came to Pokémon, full of outside-the-box ideas, and yet with no team of her own, they never got to see her in action.

"Okay?" she asked Gengar, and the Ghost-type actually nodded his understanding. Blake glanced at his sister in time to see the subtlest flick of impressed irritation flit across her face. She had the hardest time getting acknowledgments out of her own Pokémon these days.

"I'm going to see if he can undo it by making it…" She paused, hunting for a word, her fingers splaying out like a starfish and her dark eyes fixed skyward as she searched her memory.

"... Bigger?" Blake asked, really hoping he was wrong. Visions filled his head of him channelling Vaughn and going on a killing spree, or else enduring flashes not only of what Vaughn was doing but everyone in a fifty-mile radius.

"No no. Disperse?"

"Disperse," Zahlia confirmed, understanding crossing her features, and their mother beamed.

"Yes! Gengar has been trying to… to cut," she said, and though Blake felt the word she wanted was "sever," he did not interrupt. "But this might work better."

With that, their mother stepped aside and Gengar moved into her place. A kick of nerves took Blake—he was painfully aware of his abysmal track record of coming out better for it when Ghost Pokémon did absolutely anything to him, but struggled to banish that from his mind. Instead, he waited.

Gengar looked for all the world like he wasn't doing a damned thing. Blake wondered if he was allowed to blink, but after several moments he had no choice but to obey the stinging in his eyes. Gengar didn't seem perturbed, and when he faded abruptly into mist and vanished some five minutes later, Blake felt absolutely no different.

"Uhh…" he started, haltingly. "I guess we'll just… see?"

"I guess so!" Nancy said, shrugging her narrow shoulders. "I guess he doesn't want to train. But he's not the only one there is to train."

The way she said it, with her words careful and even, her face calm but questioning, there was no mistaking her meaning. Blake could have feigned ignorance, brought out Grumpy to delay the inevitable, but what was the point? "Mom… I really don't think you want to experience a training session with… with the other ones."

Nancy lifted her eyebrows at Blake, her expression clearly saying, _oh, really_? and Blake looked to the floor at once. She was so kind and sweet, so often down on herself, but Nancy Nakawa was still Blake's mother, and when she leveled this particular look at him he was five years old all over again.

Zahlia tried her hand. "It's just… we've made no headway. There's… a good chance we might just… never be able to get through at all."

The harder look softened as Nancy surveyed her children. "No such thing as 'never' when it comes to Pokémon," she said, her voice gentle but her words carrying a core of steel. "They are stronger than us, smarter than us. But the ones we teach to live beside us… they sometimes need us for help. And there's never a 'never' then."

Blake wished he was the kind of guy to get all fired up and inspired by speeches like these. He could picture Beth here, eyes bright, hopeful—maybe even a little misty if she was already in a particularly sentimental mood. But Blake couldn't dig deep enough to find the optimist that supposedly lived inside him. He didn't want to show any of this to his mother, but knew just as certainly that she could already read the skepticism on his blank face.

"You use Grumpy? To spot?" she gently prompted.

This meant she wanted to know if Grumpy was his "spotter" whenever he brought out one of Zeke's Pokémon. "Yeah," he said, unable to entirely keep the reluctance out of his voice. "Though I'm really only 'training' with the Fearow right now."

His mother frowned. "Not 'the' Fearow. If you don't want to nickname, maybe call him 'Bad Mood.'"

"Okay," Blake said, but the corner of his mouth twitched up a little as he imagined that fearsome lineup. Grumpy, Bad Mood, and toss in Beth's Murder Face just for good measure.

"You bring out Bad Mood," his mother commanded, a slight humorous glint in her eyes that did nothing to settle Blake's suddenly ratcheted nerves.

"Mom… are you sure? Bad Mood, uh… really lives up to his name."

"I'm sure he does," she said, her tone cryptic in a way that was so subtle Blake almost wondered if he was imagining it. "But bring him out anyway."

Blake hesitated, and while he did, Zahlia executed a hand gesture high above her head. Gengar must have been watching from shadow, because he materialized beside her. Knowing his sister had summoned her Pokémon back "to spot" as well, Blake groan-sighed and let Grumpy out first. His bird ruffled the feathers up around his enormous head and neck, and cooed softly as he caught sight of Nancy.

"Sorry, dude," Blake said. "It's dealing with Fearow time." At Grumpy's aghast look, Blake pointed shamelessly to his mother. "Blame her."

Nancy chuckled, but Blake noted with some relief that he didn't have to tell her to back up. Zahlia and their mother were edging back toward the far wall, and Blake removed the ball from his belt, took in a slow, fortifying breath, and chucked it hard into the center of the room.

Fearow always screamed. Every single time he was released, there was that god awful sound, rattling Blake's bones, making the hair at the back of his neck stand on end. Blake held his ground, muscled through the jolt of animal fear in his chest, and relied on Grumpy. His bird dove straight between Fearow and their trainer, and Grumpy was a hair quicker than his opponent. Whirlwind met Fury Attack and the Fearow was blown back before the strike could land.

Grumpy stuck close to Blake, wings fanned out, and the Fearow demonstrated just how insane it really was. Instead of diving back in for another assault it tore around the far corner of the room, shrieking and slamming itself against the walls and ceilings. Blake took this "break" to breathe in deeply a few times, struggling to master his nerves and that fight or flight urge that rose in him like bile.

He completely missed it when it happened. One minute he'd been fixated on Fearow and his own thundering pulse, satisfied dimly that it was busy waging war on the far wall. Then he got to see the wild bird execute a double-take so clear and so human he was sure he'd misinterpreted the gesture. That was, until it froze completely in its path of attempted destruction, crashing messily to the ground and panting. It was staring, beady dark eyes unblinking, at the corner of the room nearest the doors—the corner of the room where his mother and Zahlia stood.

Blake didn't want to take his eyes off the bird. He hadn't had time to work with Grumpy yet and retrieve Fearow's ball, which sat several yards away. He knew from bitter experience that sudden movements and any signs of weakness earned him hair-raising scrapes with that wicked beak.

"Mom," Blake said, softly and slowly, like it was a lazy Sunday afternoon. "Zahlia. Maybe now'd be a cool time for you to back up real slow to that door."

Zahlia spoke, evidently comfortable enough to do so now that Blake had done it, but her reply made no sense. "Mom. Don't."

Blake fought off a twitch with a kind of snap-quick willpower he never suspected he possessed. He slid his eyes carefully to the side, easing into the motion as smoothly as possible and straining to see what his mother was doing.

Nancy had three fingers raised in the air, arm held high over her head, and even as Blake caught full sight of her she didn't look away from the Fearow once. Blake knew now the bird had caught sight of the hand gesture, and that was what had stopped it dead. A jolt of unpleasant ice accompanied a memory that snapped into Blake's head—Zahlia had learned her wordless training techniques from Zeke—but Zeke had learned them from their mother.

"Mom—" Blake started, struggling now to keep that lazy Sunday calm in his tone.

"It's okay," his mother answered, not bothering whatsoever to keep her own voice careful and quiet. Russet brown flashed briefly out of the corner of Blake's eye and he flicked his gaze back to the corner where Fearow crouched.

The Pokémon had lurched forward a touch, drawn closer by the sound of Nancy's voice. Blake clenched his teeth hard and breathed as slow and deep as he could, but he was breaking out in a light sheen of sweat now.

"How's… this okay, exactly?" he asked, sarcasm bleeding into his light, conversational tone.

"Just wait," Nancy said again, calm as anything, and her voice once again prompted Fearow forward a few feet.

"He's like. Getting closer," Blake said pointlessly. This was obviously his suddenly insane mother's intention for reasons unfathomable.

"I know," she replied, and Fearow rushed forward.

Grumpy sped to intervene, but even as Blake spun to do the same, a choking blanket of darkness fell all around him and his Pokémon.

One hundred percent done with plans and precision, Blake hollered, "Zahlia!" at the top of his lungs, not sure she could hear him through Night Shade's area of effect, desperately needing her to call off Gengar.

Zahlia's voice shouted out her Pokémon's name from across the inky divide, something Blake could hardly ever recall her doing, and a frenetic three seconds later the light flooded back into the room. Blake squinted, eyes watering from the short but painful contrast, and found what he was desperately seeking when he swung his eyes left.

How the hell had his mother moved so fast? She was almost half the room away from Zahlia now, Grumpy poised where Nancy had last been and blinking in alarm. His mother and Fearow stood frozen mere feet from one another, eyes locked, dead silence the only thing between them.

Blake twitched to a dead halt at once. Almost without making a conscious choice, he took one step backward, then another—edging bit by bit toward the place where he knew Fearow's ball still sat.

Slowly and easily, Nancy lowered her hand. She morphed her fingers into a new sign as she did, one that formed a cup of her fingers, palm up, as if offering Fearow something. Wishing violently he'd devoted more of his sister's signs to memory, Blake could only watch and guess. He turned just his torso to the side so he could start to crouch down and feel for the dropped ball with his fingertips.

For a long moment that was probably not a long moment, it looked like Fearow wasn't going to respond to the hand sign in any way. Blake dragged his fingers along the ground, searching for the ball, and just the sound of his fingertips swiping the dirt aside alerted the transfixed Pokémon to his presence. Fearow's head snapped toward him, Blake froze, Grumpy twitched forward, prepared to dive in, and Nancy gave a loud plosive sound, clucking her tongue on the end of the harsh noise.

Fearow stopped. Its eyes stayed on Blake's face, then tracked down to the hand still splayed on the floor, but slowly its head began to turn back to Nancy. Nancy didn't make the sound again to hurry it up. Instead she waited, and although the progress was slow, eventually she had the bird's complete focus again.

Blake stayed still. He could tell, and he wasn't sure at all how, that the Fearow had not forgotten him. New tension had replaced the trancelike state it had been in before, but it remained still and as close to compliant as he'd ever seen it.

Nancy moved her cupped hand forward again, just a touch, and the Fearow reacted this time. Slowly, uncertainly, it began to lower its large, fearsome head, bringing that deadly and powerful beak closer to her fingers. Blake stopped breathing.

Fearow didn't quite make it to whatever it had been trying for. A ripple coursed through it, all those feathers fluffing up. It could almost look silly to a person who didn't know birds, but Blake knew a threat stance when he saw one.

"Now, now," Nancy said, quietly, her voice finally sounding something other than maddeningly normal. There was a touch of sympathy and an undercurrent of sadness. "It's okay. No one will hurt you here."

Nick had tried things like this with Zeke's Pokémon before, but Blake hardly expected results from those sessions. The attempts at comfort usually had to be screamed over an absolute din of shrieks and skull-bashing. Now, for once, the words seemed to get through. Fearow didn't lower his head any closer to her, but slowly, the feathers settled back down, and Blake couldn't tell if he was imagining it… but a new wave seemed to take the Pokémon. Tension left in odd muscle groups—exhaustion set in. For the first time ever Blake could relate.

His fingers had found the ball. He had no memory of it. He stood tall again, the cold sphere clutched in his hand, but gone was his knee-jerk urge to return the monster who was poised so close to his mother.

Nancy glanced his way, a ghost of a smile in her dark eyes, one that left not a trace of expression anywhere else on her face, and Blake saw his sister reflected there.

Nancy slid her eyes away from her son and lifted a new sign to the bird before her. Zahlia had used this one around Blake often enough for him to recognize it—the warning sign for a Pokémon who was about to be returned. Blake expected Fearow to take off screaming again, or at least ruffle up once more in indignation, but instead it just slid back from his mother, opening up several feet between them.

It took Blake a second to lift the ball and hit the button. It almost felt wrong, a deviation from unspoken ritual, seeing his Pokémon vanish quietly into light, no last echoing scream to haunt the room.

He'd almost forgotten speech was a thing in this long, strange and still moment, so when Zahlia spoke he jumped a little.

"Mom. That was your Pokémon once." They didn't need the unspoken, "wasn't it?" It wasn't really a question.

All Nancy Nakawa did was turn to her daughter and smile.

* * *

Blake decided around one in the morning that Amaris (that bastard) had clearly stolen his entire share of sleep. Blake couldn't catch a wink in spite of being utterly worn out by his two training sessions with Fearow in one day. Now that he was the new, proud owner of insomnia, Blake understood why he always saw Amaris or other troubled sleepers out and about so insanely early in the morning. It was hard to force yourself to lie in a bed and toss and turn to no avail.

Blake sat up, back bowed and shoulders hunched, a weary weight of defeat heavy in his chest. He was exhausted—his eyes itched and his head felt unsteady. But he was sure if he stayed cooped up in this room any longer he'd lose it.

Blake slipped from his room and closed the door behind him as quietly as possible. With his mother staying two doors down his comings and goings felt conspicuous. She always slept with the door open and Blake remembered vaguely how easy it was to wake her with the slightest sound.

So instead he went the other way. He had no destination, but nevertheless his feet took him in one direction without stop. He didn't think much of it until he found himself stationed at the end of a hallway—in front of Beth's door, the final room of that corridor.

Blake frowned. There was no way she'd still be up. Beth was one of their effortless morning larks, and was normally the first of their number to start the jaw-cracking yawns that prompted Blake's evening, "go to bed, whack job" notifications. He couldn't help but recall how she'd sought him out in the Power Plant—he hadn't been able to tell 100% if she was bothered about something, but she'd wanted a distraction and he'd delivered. Though admittedly a scrape with acrophobia probably wasn't what she'd expected to take her mind off her troubles. He smiled at the memory.

From within the room came a tiny click and a golden strip of light appeared at the crack under the door. Blake froze, torn between staying to apologize or retreating—how had she heard his approach? He thought he'd been quiet. He hadn't made up his mind when the door cracked open.

Beth peered out from the slice of room visible, expression bewildered for a second before a smile bloomed across her tired face. "Who dares intrude upon my lair?" she asked, pulling the door open wider and rubbing a hand through her rumpled brown hair.

"If you were Lady Larson maybe I should be Baron Blake?" he asked, but that was all the levity he could muster before he followed it up with, "shit, sorry. I must've been Rhyhorn stomping if I woke you up just passing by."

"Nah, I wasn't really asleep. Not for lack of trying," she mused, stepping back and covering a yawn with her elbow. "I'd not say no to a diversion. Wanna come in for a bit?"

"Sure," Blake said, because it felt like the least weird response. He couldn't pinpoint it, but somehow "sneaking" into Beth's room past midnight felt different than chatting in adjacent sleeping bags out under the stars. It was ridiculous—the context was the same, so Blake put it from his mind. Beth curled up at the top corner of her bed, covering her legs with her blankets, and Blake sat backwards in the sole chair the room possessed. It was weird seeing Beth in a room alone, not sharing with her sister, so Blake chose this as conversation topic #1.

"No more bunking with Victoria?" he asked.

"Well, seeing how there are way more than enough rooms for all of us," Beth teased lightly before continuing, "but, nah, she's, ah… well, she's rooming with Gav now, actually."

Blake lifted an eyebrow without meaning to, and the short-lived _oh really_ smile was equally unintended. He glanced away and put his face right, but Beth just chuckled.

"Hey, but at least you get your own digs now," he pointed out.

Beth shrugged, a gesture he caught from the corner of his eye. He looked back in time to see her glance away, thoughtful. "Eh… I never actually minded sharing space with Vee. We argue, sometimes… but I can't ever really remember wanting to be apart from her. Not seriously."

Blake gave that some thought. "I guess I can see what you mean. Zahlia's a good sibling-slash-room mate. Freakishly quiet, too. The 'is she actually here or am I talking to myself again' game is my favorite." Beth giggled at that, Blake smiled, and the world dropped away all around him.

* * *

" _I'm going to ask you the same questions one more time."_

 _Sergio is worse for the wear. The normally tan skin around his eyes is a splotchy, angry red, marks that may not go away. He is the weak link—he is the one most likely to crack first and tell Vaughn what he needs to know._

 _So Vaughn purposefully does not focus on him too much. He splits his attention evenly, never letting on that he feels the challenger's anger, bitterness, need for vengeance growing and growing. He addresses his questions to all three gathered before him equally._

" _Tell me again who was present. Everyone."_

" _The Fremont brothers," Owen supplies first, and Vaughn holds up two fingers to show he is counting._

" _The Nakawa siblings," Glen says next, wording it this way instead of saying_ your daughter and son. _Vaughn holds up two more fingers and notes his tact._

" _The Harrison children," Sergio says, his tone a little gritty and strained. Owen breaks eye contact with Vaughn to cast his sharp, pale gaze to the side of Sergio's face, a warning if ever Vaughn has seen one. AGERS are so tiresome with their posturing and competing. His thumb goes up, as does the first finger of his next hand._

" _The two Initiates. Drake's nephew and the Ikeda girl." Two more go up, and when the next reply is, "the Larson girls—" Vaughn cuts them off._

" _I've run out of fingers," he reports, casually, lifting his ninth finger, but there is no tenth to represent the second Larson sister. "If you'd be so kind."_

 _Sergio lifts his thumb, then a series of others as Owen blasts through the rest. "Wyland and Lance."_

" _Twelve," Vaughn says, surveying his count of nine and Sergio's proffered three. "Twelve total." He doesn't word it like a question, but Owen replies like it is one._

" _Yes."_

" _And you're sure." Vaughn keeps his eyes locked on Owen's, and he can see the way his nostrils flare, just a little, coupled with a tightening around his eyes. He adds another adjective to his list of descriptors for AGERS—predictable._

" _Twelve," Owen says, ever the ring leader—as much as a group of AGERS can ever decide on a leader._

" _I hope this is true," Vaughn says simply, lowering his hands. Sergio does the same, and Vaughn watches his face but never looks at him as he finishes. "Because in the end you're only protecting those whose names you fail to give me."_

 _He sees the ripple of displeasure that crosses Sergio's face, and this is data to him._

" _Sir," Glen says, his voice even and the perfect picture of calm respect. He's having one of his lucid days. Vaughn shifts his eyes to him as permission. "If I may. Any word on Anderton, Mason and their team?"_

 _It is an interesting question, and Vaughn knows at once why he was asked this. Anderton and Mason are being punished as traitors—what does that look like? The answer is relevant to these three—snakes in his midst, as they all are in the end. Luckily they are also—another adjective for the list—transparent._

 _There's no reason to lie. "Anderton and Mason have been apprehended. Bear in mind—they are leaders, with experience and value. I endeavor to bring them back into the fold so they may continue to contribute."_

 _Glen nods, but now Sergio has a question, and it also is revelatory. "And the four team members who worked under them?"_

 _Vaughn couldn't have planned it more perfectly. Sergio asks this because he knows. He is not an Anderton or a Mason. He is not an Owen. He didn't even make it past Lance in his challenge, and in the pecking order amongst his fellows, he is hardly more than a lackey._

 _So Vaughn continues to tell the truth. "Those four knew they were following incorrect orders. If they'd been anything more than short-sighted fools they'd have resisted, knowing the consequences would fall on them hardest." He pauses, and sees that his words have had their intended effect on Sergio. He can practically feel them sink low into the frustrated, cornered man, find roots and warm, dark places to germinate in his mind._

" _I have no use for people like that."_

* * *

Blake's whole body went rigid, and when the first thing he heard was Beth's stifled, "oh my god," he knew what had happened, and knew he was back.

He snapped his head up from where it had been resting on something soft and warm—Beth's shoulder. His eyes burned even more than before and he gritted out a soft, "agh" of aggravation as he squeezed them shut. He was becoming more and more aware of his body and how it was positioned as each second trickled by. Beth's hands were vice-like on his shoulders and he was bent uncomfortably over the back of the chair.

"Blake, holy hell—are you okay?" Beth asked by his ear, pulling him a little more upright. He blinked blearily, trying to put the world and his mind in order.

"Yeah," he said, finally finding her face. She'd gone so pale. "Shit, yeah, I'm fine—did I?"

"You talked," Beth reported to him at once, brown eyes very wide. "Kind of a lot. I mean, it wasn't actually a lot, it just _felt_ like a ton… I was trying to wake you up, but…"

"Anderton and Mason?" he asked, his mind working backwards.

"Yeah," Beth said, tracking this now. "And… Jesus. It feels like—it felt like… you were implying… are those other four?"

"Dead," Blake said at once. "Almost certainly."

A visible shudder coursed through Beth, and since she was still holding his shoulders, he felt it too. It translated into his own nerves, and he mirrored it.

"What was with the counting?" Beth asked softly, moving her hands across his shoulders and upper arms in a comforting gesture. He wasn't sure she was fully conscious of doing it.

"All of us. He was asking the three challengers to list all of us—everyone who was at the fight in the forest."

"Twelve?" Beth asked, and her hands slid past the hems of his t-shirt sleeves and found his skin. Blake broke out in goosebumps.

"There should have been thirteen," he mumbled. Beth only got out, "who did—?" before Blake supplied the answer. "Tim."

They both fell silent again, not looking at each other, each staring off to the side, trying to find answers within such limited information.

When Beth spoke again it wasn't to dig or more information. "Tomorrow," she said, softly. "If—if anything… what we just found out means… for some unknown reason, they don't want to tell that Tim was involved. It means our base is secure for now." Blake stared at her, comprehending her words slowly, wheels still spinning a little too fast for it to be easy. A smile returned to her face, and though fear still furrowed her brow, the kindness there was familiar, and a comfort for it. "So the big aggravating analysis of what it all means… it can wait for tomorrow. For now? Get rest, if you can."


	10. People Change :Gav:

Pokémon Azure

Chapter 10: People Change

(Gav Harrison)

"Everything okay still?" Kaylee asked, talking out of the corner of her mouth while they walked and scanning the path ahead of them instead of looking Gav's way.

Gav battled with an internal cringe that longed to express itself outwardly. "Yes, B's still fine. And for god's sake, look at me when we're talking. It's what these getups are for."

The Harrison siblings and Tim were about halfway to the Gym district, and though they hadn't encountered too many citizens wandering around in the middle of the day on a Tuesday, the paranoia was real. They'd seriously considered teleporting in versus walking, but didn't want to chance popping by unannounced in the middle of a Gym battle or amongst a line of hopeful challengers gathered outside. The less attention they drew, the better, but his sister was taking that to heart in such an extreme way that it had come full cycle to work against her.

Gav's phone was never in his pocket. He was trading messages with the others too rapidly to ever put it away. The cliff notes were:

\+ Blake was okay.

\+ That vision had been his longest so far, which was worrisome in itself.

\+ For some reason unknown, the challengers had outright lied to Vaughn Nakawa, concealing the fact that Tim had been the thirteenth man present during their battle in Viridian Forest.

\+ Anderton and Mason had been found and captured.

\+ Their four lackeys were dead.

In Gav's mind he pictured Blake uncapping a dry erase marker and penning a sixth bullet point under his list: _Nakawa's missing the pinky on his left hand._ Zahlia's brother had shared that tidbit of information with them in a compulsive, nervous way during their debrief, preferring not to meet anyone's eyes directly and sharing random things as they occurred to him. His usual attempts at bleak humor felt forced and stifled.

In Gav's mind he wrote question marks next to his first bullet point.

His comment to Kaylee had had an unintended effect. Instead of causing her to relax the rigidity of her posture and mannerisms, she'd clammed up and stopped talking entirely. With half her face hidden behind enormous, faux fashionable white framed sunglasses, she looked like a surly celebrity trying to go incognito instead.

Gav leaned over and nudged her arm. "Hey," he murmured. "It's cool."

He knew Kaylee's nerves weren't being stretched thin because of the chance they might be recognized—not entirely. They were all suffering from nerves the closer they got to the Gym, and to Armstrong.

The two days they'd spent prepping for this simple trip had been interspersed with a lot of nervous training. Gav was notorious for prioritizing "get my team to level up" pretty low on his daily agenda, but the take-away from their meeting had stuck with him. There wasn't a ton they could do right now, other than continue every method possible to get Wyland to talk, and because of that, training up their teams had to take precedence.

Gav's Pokémon were among the most patient and agreeable creatures he'd ever had the pleasure of knowing. In spite of the fact that he was a hands-off trainer most of the time, whenever he asked them to resume their training regiment they stepped up to the plate without complaint. Diglett in particular had surprised him with his willingness to learn and improve. His newest team member had been getting mentored by some of his friends' other Pokémon, Gina's Nidoqueen in particular. Now, however, the training wheels were gone. Diglett was taking off all on his own, zipping around with Marowak and surprising Gav's other Ground-type time and time again, popping up out of the earth behind him and pegging four or five rapid hits before finally getting tagged by a Bone Club in return.

If Gav had been training more than normal out of anxiety over their upcoming face-to-face with the man who had raised them, Kaylee had turned into a whirlwind of levelling. Luckily Tim was more than capable of keeping up with her frenetic pace, and more often than not when no one could find Gav's sister it turned out she was deep in a training set with Tim and his various Pokémon. Gav found himself wearing a perpetual, perplexed frown these days. He'd thought after he approached Tim and asked him to "let his sister down easy" that the Champ would start to avoid Kaylee a little out of sheer awkwardness. If anything, they were spending more time together than before. Gav wasn't sure if he was grateful to Tim for not changing the nature of their friendship and treating Kaylee just the same as he'd always done, or if he was worried about how this would all go down in the end.

When the three trainers were close enough to the Gym district to spot the sleek, granite building in the distance, Gav paused. "Tim?" he asked, drawing the others to a halt with him. "I was wondering. Would it be alright with you if K and I go in first? Talk to Armstrong for a minute before we come get you?"

Tim glanced between the Harrisons, but nodded without a pause to think about it. "That's completely fine. I'll be right outside when you're ready for me. I know Armstrong, too, so it shouldn't be weird when I join you."

Kaylee, who had still been wearing that locked-down, stony expression, flicked her eyes over to Tim and lowered her comically huge frames to peer at him over the tops. Her expression was still steeped in worry, but beneath that was an undercurrent of warmth and gratitude that Gav honestly felt a mirror of within himself. "Thank you," he said to Tim, clapping a hand to his shoulder for a moment before his sister and he branched off down the path to the Gym alone.

No one was waiting outside for a battle, and Gav felt it likely no one was inside in the middle of one, either. Kaylee's nerves felt like palpable waves to him the closer they got, and though he was tempted to reach out and rest a comforting hand on her arm, she was so wound up he might get flipped clean onto his back just out of sheer reflex.

Gav pushed the heavy double-doors open and let Kaylee and himself into the dark interior of the Gym. A pang of amusement warred with heavy, painful nostalgia. So he was just the same as ever, weird and full of his unexplained idiosyncrasies. Kaylee branched off to the hidden fusebox, ready to flood the room with light, and Gav cleared his throat, not wanting to squeak like a school boy when he spoke.

"Jerry?" he called, his voice filling the dark space.

The response was instantaneous. "Gav?"

Another punch of emotion hit him low and hard. Guilt, shame, powerful love—even after so long apart, he still recognized their voices immediately. Gav couldn't quite see him across the way, but he was able to make out his hulking shape, shifting among the darkness high up on the platform where Gav had watched so many fights. Instead of climbing down the ladder, Armstrong used it like a firefighter's pole to slide straight to the earth. He landed on both feet with a resounding, rattling crash.

Gav stayed where he was and a second later the first and third rows of lights flickered on, but Kaylee stopped there, darting over closer to his side while Armstrong tore across the Gym floor toward them. As he crossed from the shadowed side of the Gym closer to the part lit by the meager two rows of ceiling lights, the look on his face became clearer. Jerry Armstrong's dark eyes were wide beneath a set, furious brow, and the scruffy beard and moustache did nothing to hide the fierce, hard line of his mouth. Gav, rooted to the spot, just watched him tear a path across the rocky terrain and struggled not to look like he was bracing himself.

Armstrong grabbed Gav by one shoulder, Kaylee by the other, and lurched forward before stopping, his enormous frame arrested by crackling, static energy. Gav was sure he was torn between shaking them or crushing them both in a spine-snapping bear hug. "Talk _now_ ," he growled, and the story flooded out as if the Harrison siblings were a pair of water taps and Armstrong had just effortlessly turned both handles.

As Gav and Kaylee rushed to provide Armstrong with what he'd asked them for, talking over each other in a rush, Gav got to see a change come over the man's stony, stoic face. Not everything they told him registered across his expression with surprise—none of their initial project shocked him, which Gav had expected. Armstrong had likely suspected that the Harrison children were still off seeking answers and justice for their parents. But as they told him a bit more—about meeting the Fremont brothers, about Zahlia and her family—the stern anger began to melt off his face in degrees. They had only been hastily recapping for about five minutes when Kaylee interrupted herself mid-sentence.

"The Fremonts and Nakawas aren't the only people we've met who were—oh—Jerry, um, Tim's out—Tim Broome? He came with us… he's involved, definitely involved… can I? Go get him?"

For the first time since they began unloading on him, Armstrong said something other than "talk now." His broad shoulders sagged just a touch and he rubbed his weathered face with one hand. "Of course," he said to Kaylee. But before she darted off he mumbled, "Christ. Just as stubborn n' crazy as Ando, Mariko and Brock. Whatever you're in, I'm in too. You sure as shit ain't doing this alone." Kaylee's expression twisted into a look of pained fondness, and Armstrong shooed her away. "Now go collect Tim." Kaylee bolted for the double doors and Gav did his absolute best to keep himself together.

It was a losing battle. He'd only had a second or two to breathe deep and blink fast before Armstrong hauled him into a fierce, tight hug. Gav was an inch shy of six feet tall, but Armstrong dwarfed him, and for the first time in memory Gav felt like a kid. He swallowed so hard it hurt, fought the burn in his eyes, throat and face, and squeezed back the man who'd served as his father figure for more than half his life.

"I'm sorry," Gav croaked out, eyes open but seeing only the comforting darkness of the front of Armstrong's shirt.

"What're you sorry for?" Armstrong growled back, disapproving fondness deep in the rumble Gav could feel in his face. "It better not be for bringing me onboard. I'm only pissed off you didn't do it sooner."

The doors creaked open again and Armstrong had the decency to let go so Gav had a fighting chance to compose himself as Tim and Kaylee crossed over to them. Gav had to breathe slow a few times through his mouth and stare at the neutral, flat earth tones of the Gym terrain, and by the time he'd recovered his sister and the Champ had drawn level and exchanged a few murmured words with Pewter's Gym Leader.

The look Armstrong gave Tim was a wistful one. "How's your Kabutops?"

Tim returned the smile, and it was as tired and complicated as the one he'd just received. "He's great. Want to see him?"

"Course I do," Armstrong grunted and their old, sad smiles turned just a touch lighter as Tim pulled Kabutops' copper ball off his belt to release his Pokémon. The strange sight of the non-standard ball sparked up the temporarily dropped conversation and Gav took up the mantle of further explanation. He was more than glad for the distraction.

To his enormous credit, Armstrong did not interrupt the trio even once. Unasked questions flashed across his face from time to time, but Gav could hazard pretty good guesses about which parts had confused him, alarmed him, or otherwise tripped him up. He did his best to intervene and elaborate when this happened. More than once having to smoothly cut in while Kaylee expounded on something a mile a minute.

All the while, Armstrong silently communed with Tim's Pokémon. With not a trace of fear or apprehension, and indeed, at times without even looking, Armstrong ran his hands gently, almost absently, along the flats of Kabutops' blades. Kabutops held his limbs aloft for the attention, every so often uttering a strange, crooning purr interspersed with gentle, rapid clicks.

When they'd caught up to the present—Wyland and Lance and all—Armstrong straightened up from where he'd crouched down. Both knees gave mighty cracks, but he didn't wince.

"Lily Yawa and her sisters," he said, and it took Gav a second to figure out what he was talking about. "Then Jo and Zo from Celadon. Those're some Gym Leaders I promise you can trust."

Relief stole the rigidity from Gav's posture and a more exaggerated version of that feeling manifested itself in Kaylee. She slumped, put her face in her hands, and gave a weak chuckle.

"That's such good news. We knew you'd know some people. But five? That's…"

"Better than one," Tim supplied, casting Kaylee's bowed head an unspeakably warm, gently amused smile that caught Gav's attention and held it.

"No kidding," Armstrong grumbled, in his faux bad mood, but Gav caught a twinkle in his dark eyes that showed he wasn't entirely serious. "I'm useful for a few things after all, hmm? C'mon, you three. Let's move this shindig back to my place."

* * *

It had been well over two years since Gav had set foot in Armstrong's home, but during that span of time not much had changed. Though he'd been Pewter's unofficial-official Leader for years, Armstrong was a man of extremely modest taste except in one regard. There was no true "floor" to his moderately-sized single storey home. There were baseboards where the walls met the ground, and the occasional section of hardwood flooring here and there, but almost every room sported dirt or grass in place of carpet or tile. As Gav, Kaylee and Tim branched off to shuck off their coats and put down their backpacks, various Ground-type Pokémon popped into the foyer to study them curiously. Patches of the ground were uneven, but Gav knew Armstrong's fleet of Diglett, Dugtrio, Sandshrew and Sandslash smoothed out the terrain every night before bed.

Tim glanced around the room, smiling with interest at the way the walls dug straight down into the earth. As he stooped to knock near the base of one wall, a Diglett popped up right by his hand as if answering the summons. Tim jumped a little at its sudden appearance and, laughing, offered his hand out for it to rub against.

"Oh," Gav murmured, the sight of the Diglett reminding him. "I have one of those in my roster now."

Armstrong's scraggly eyebrows rose so dramatically that Gav lowered his own in mock exasperation. "No. You made a catch? Who are you and what have you done with Gav Harrison?"

"Right?" Kaylee exclaimed, face lighting up with glee. "I have to tell you _how_ he caught it, too—it's frickin' _classic_ , you're not gonna _believe_ ," and before Gav could protest, Kaylee launched into the rousing tale of How My Brother Caught a Pokémon with his Butt. Gav, too amused to be honestly annoyed, talked over her for a bit before he was soundly surpassed in volume. Chuckling, he released his still slightly shy Diglett so it could explore, make friends, and receive Armstrong's stamp of approval.

Gav's phone buzzed against his chest. Turning from Kaylee's animated retelling, which was starting to sound just a little embellished, Gav dug his device out of his jacket's chest pocket and unlocked the screen.

 _How's it going? -V_

Gav smiled and one-handed his reply. Behind him Kaylee went, _boom!_

 _Way better than I had hoped. Got names. Catching up now, too._

Her reply was speedy. _That's such a relief. Was it busy there?_

 _Not a single person_ , he tapped back, naturally avoiding any specific names or even key phrases like, "at the Gym." He kept his phone in hand but glanced up in time to see Armstrong shake his head in amused disbelief. He cast Gav a glance and Gav shrugged.

Victoria's next message buzzed in his hand. _Things quiet here. Staying the night there?_

Gav considered this, flicking his gaze up and smiling at the more-than-welcome sight of Kaylee, Armstrong and Tim all throwing their heads back and laughing.

 _I think so, yeah. It's doing everyone so much good._

 _I'm glad_ , came the quick reply. _Though now you're going to be on the receiving end of a block of text from me, because there's something I'd like your opinion on._

Gav frowned at that, but quickly typed back, of course. This was unusual—not necessarily that she wanted to pick his brain, but that it was something they obviously hadn't gone over in the group at large before he'd left. Putting his worries from his mind, Gav caught Armstrong inquiring after their current level of hunger and lifted his hand in the air as a vote. Kaylee said, "Ten outta ten," and Tim said, "Ravenous."

Kaylee glanced Gav's way and snorted. "You rate your hunger level as 'present'? Like you're in the middle of roll call?"

Gav grinned at her. "My hunger is very present. And what is this, 'pick on Gav day'?"

" _Every_ day is 'pick on Gav day' for me," Kaylee shot back, batting her eyelashes, and Tim, Armstrong and Gav laughed.

Armstrong was partway through his sloppy Joe prep when Victoria's promised wall of text came through.

 _Long and short of it is, I'm worried about Be. She's awful at keeping secrets and it doesn't feel quite like she's keeping one from me now… but things aren't right, either. I think I can hazard a guess. R is bugging her more than ever, blowing up her phone. What's more… she and Bl seem like they're getting closer._

Gav stared down at those last two words. "Getting closer" seemed to imply a romantic sort of "closer," but was just vague enough that Gav couldn't be sure. Rather than guess and look like an idiot or jerk, he asked for clarification before setting his phone down on the table for a minute. He'd totally missed the subject change—Armstrong was saying, "No!" in a scandalized tone and Kaylee replied with a robust, "Yes!"

Victoria's next message was more enlightening. _I guess even I'm not totally sure what I mean by that. Sorry for being vague. I'm only worried because, from an outside perspective, it sure looks like flirting. Only Bl's so… Bl. Aloof. Can't get a bead on him._

Gav at least understood what they were talking about now, but the understanding was quickly coupled with a bleakly amused dismay. Of course it made sense now why Victoria was reaching out to him to brainstorm about this—she couldn't well talk to Beth about it. Yet Gav was woefully lacking in all skill in this department and typed and deleted his reply so many times their food was ready before he was able to punch "send."

 _Well… I'd try not to read too much into it just yet. I mean, didn't Bl actually tell Be to her face that he's not into her that way?_

29 words… Gav sighed. It had taken him almost twenty minutes to compose two sentences, and they weren't even great sentences at that. He'd have to seriously work on that part of his personality once he was a husband.

Gav stopped cold, midway through rising from his chair.

Luckily none of the others took note of his bizarre, frozen stance, as Tim and Kaylee were both crowded around the stove, bumping one another with their shoulders and jostling to get the "best" sesame buns from Armstrong. Gav finished standing up and waited his turn behind the laughing three-person mob.

This was a classic example of what Kaylee lovingly coined, "dumb/smart." Gav was able to juggle several highly technical projects, analyze each move their group should take and even recall more obscure pieces of old case info at the drop of a hat—yet he'd completely forgotten to tell his sister that he'd proposed to Victoria months ago now. In his defense, the attack on Pallet, their flight to the Power Plant and efforts to relocate more permanently had been a little distracting, but he didn't assume Kaylee would muster up much sympathy for him now that they'd been "safe" for weeks. The truth was he'd forgotten, plain and simple.

Gav was finally able to snag himself some food and re-engaged in the mealtime conversation, feeling even more guilty and obligated to be present in light of his glaring failure as an older brother. Lunch went by lightly enough, and quickly turned into a mobile event as the four followed various Pokémon around Armstrong's winding house. Gav spotted the framed photo on the wall first, but before he could decide if he wanted to divert Kaylee from it, she'd laid eyes on it too. Their parents smiled out from the dark wood frame, and Gav felt a soft, wistful look grow on his own face. It always struck him that he smiled with the left corner of his mouth first, the right side lagging behind a little—just like Ando Harrison was doing in this photo.

It was nice—though a little unusual—to see his father smiling in a photo. He was always so serious when photographed, at least in Gav's memory. Armstrong, seeing where the siblings' line of sight had gone, paused in his meandering stroll. He chewed slowly, swallowed, dabbed his moustache with his paper towel and sighed. "Be right back," he said before departing into an adjacent room. Gav wondered vaguely where he was going, but that thought flitted in and out of his head so briefly it almost couldn't be classified as a true thought.

He moved closer to the frame. Ando Harrison was as tall and serious as his wife was short and spunky. Mariko grinned with an unabashed flash of teeth, her head barely level with her husband's chin. One dark eyebrow was quirked high behind her dark frames. Gav had always found it fascinating when children looked like an even mix of their parents. Take their father's jaw here, but their mother's hair… Gav and Kaylee weren't like that at all. He was practically a carbon copy of Ando, and the only thing Kaylee had borrowed from their father and grandfather was her tanned skin tone. Everything else was Mariko to a tee. Even her flyaway hair looked more like their mother's now that she was keeping it a little shorter.

Armstrong returned, sans paper plate and instead holding a dilapidated dark red photo album. Gav felt his expression lock down carefully even as Tim and Kaylee moved closer to Armstrong and the album, curious. Kaylee might have been too young, but Gav remembered it. The specific contents of the album were lost in his memory, but he clearly recalled asking Armstrong to keep it for him—far away from the home he and Kaylee had left so long ago. It had been far too painful for Gav to ever imagine cracking those yellowed pages open again. That had been over half his lifetime ago—and still, Gav wasn't sure he was ready.

Kaylee peered up at Armstrong. "There aren't gross, embarrassing baby photos in there, right?"

"What do you take me for?" Armstrong asked, play-offended. "'Course there are." Kaylee groaned, Tim grinned and said, "Oh, I'm _all_ in for this," and Gav tried to muster up his courage.

The first few pages weren't so bad. Gav remembered most of these photos—he must have made an ill-fated stab at looking through the album before deciding he needed to store it somewhere far away. He could tell where he'd probably abruptly stopped and slammed the book shut, though. Old school photos of his parents and their families didn't bother him so much—those were grainy, several years removed and very staged. But past that point the pictures took on so much more life.

Ando Harrison had cried on his wedding day. He had one hand lifted to the corner of his eye, a grimacing smile on his face while Mariko leaned heavily on his arm, head resting against her husband and a look on her face that managed to be both brutally teasing and unspeakably fond. Gav couldn't be sure from this angle, but it looked like Mariko had worn a white female-cut suit tux to the ceremony.

The next photo was of Gav, barely a year old from the look of him, and both parents were perfectly mimicking their infant son's wide-eyed, vacant stare up at whoever was taking the photo. From beside him Kaylee snort-laughed quietly and Gav felt a smile break out over his face in spite of the burning in his throat.

They flipped through pages like that, pausing here and there to remark on something or other. They weren't chronological by any stretch of imagination, and were sometimes a little tricky to follow because of it, but Armstrong shed light on the timeline when they needed him to.

Then one page flipped over and changed the entire mood of the quiet, thoughtful room with the violent efficiency of shattering glass. Tim jolted in his chair, recognizing the man first, but that was hardly a surprise. It was only natural he'd be primed to recognize his own father.

Kieran Broome looked much the way he had in the Nidoranarchy videos. Long brown hair held back in a longer ponytail than Ando's, an impressive, scruffy five-o-clock shadow across his jaw, wire frame glasses and an expression like he was perfectly at ease with the world. In several photos Gav spotted what was clearly a younger Katherine Broome hanging near his side, her expression shy but sweet. Here was an example of parents' genetics collaborating to create a child. Tim had his mother's blue eyes but his father's hair color, though Gav didn't think he'd ever seen Tim look quite as carefree as his young father did in this photo. Kieran had an arm looped around Ando's shoulders and his other elbow resting atop Mariko's head—Mariko was grinning at the camera and pretending to be mid-punch to Kieran's gut. A pang of melancholy humor took Gav—he had often done the same thing to Kaylee in their youth, before she hit her growth spurt.

"... I guess I should have put the pieces together," Tim mumbled, relaxing his tense shoulders a fraction. "We found out a while ago that my dad knew… well… a ton of people. Amaris' uncle, Kaylee and Gav's parents. Only logical he'd be in a few of these." Tim paused, then glanced over at Armstrong, uncertain. "... Did you know my dad too, then?"

Armstrong paused, but only to pull in a deep breath and let it out on a sigh. "I did. He was a good man." He paused again, then shook his head. "But you know that. You remember him, I know."

A heaviness settled down on their gathered number. Tim went back to looking down at the photo, but Armstrong cleared his throat again.

"Before he left… with Ando and Mariko, that last time. He gave me something to give to you."

Gav frowned, wondering if Armstrong was going to leave and get something for Tim, but realization dawned on the Champ's face instead.

"You're the one who sent me Kabuto's fossil," he said, voice barely carrying even in the still room.

Armstrong nodded. "It was something Kieran wanted to give to you himself, when you were of age. I didn't understand why he had it sent to me until after I got the news."

The silence took reign again. As one, all four of them looked back down at the photos smiling up at them from the still book. Some images were aligned perfectly, professionally done, but several were not. An arm blurred here, mid-wave, his mother bent double and laughing so hard she was weeping. In one Kieran had apparently invented the selfie long before cameras were built into Dexes and some phones, and the canted angle of the shot made it look like everyone in the frame was being tossed about on an unforgiving sea. Their families looked so real like this, so accessible and weird and human, and Gav wished powerfully he had drummed up his nerve to look at these sooner.

"I ever tell you that Kieran was instrumental in getting your mom and dad together?" Armstrong asked the group, and Kaylee shook her head while Gav quirked a wistful smile. Of course the answer was no—they'd never wanted to talk much about their parents until now.

Armstrong smiled and leaned back, rubbing his beard. "Ando n' Mariko were oil n' water at first. Your mom was keen on your dad, and not at all quiet about it, but good ol' Ando was married to his work. Brock n' I'd laugh about it, placin' bets on how long it'd take them to get together."

This was definitely news to Gav. He glanced back down at the page, where Mariko was challenging Armstrong to an arm wrestling match, laughable in and of itself since his mother had spaghetti arms compared to Jerry's. From the side of the shot Ando watched his wife's play bravado with a look that could only be described as adoring devotion.

There was a small blip of movement to his right and Gav's eyes slid automatically to follow it. Kaylee, her expression wistful and distracted, threaded her fingers into Tim's in plain sight across the table, but half a second later she'd released him. Her eyes snapped up to Gav's, color flooded her cheeks and ears and Armstrong cleared his throat.

"Four for cocoa?" he asked, and without waiting for the yays or nays, retreated from the room.

All Gav had to do was lift his eyebrows. Kaylee cracked immediately.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled, addressing the open page of the album instead. "I should've… we're kind of… yeah. I, yeah. I'm sorry. Don't be mad?"

Unbidden, an amused and bewildered smile cracked out across Gav's face, starting at the left corner of his mouth as always. Kaylee hadn't actually said anything yet, but before Gav could reply, his phone buzzed against his chest. Victoria getting back to him late—and with a jolt he realized this might be a perfect opportunity. He tugged his phone out of his pocket and unlocked it, but didn't read the text yet, instead glancing over to Tim.

Tim blanched. "I, uh… wanted to tell you," he mumbled.

Kaylee talked over the end of his sentence. "I asked him to wait—we weren't sure if it was… I mean, there never seemed to be a good time…"

Gav paused, Victoria's message open now but not yet read. A groan escaped him and he stared at Tim with disbelieving horror anew. "God, you were together even while I was telling you to let my sister down easy? … Well. I guess I'm the one who feels like an idiot now."

Kaylee's jaw dropped. "Wait, you—you _didn't!_ Gav! Ugh! Do you know how _lame_ that is?!"

"Uh, yeah, I know exactly how lame it was," Gav barked on a laugh. "I was there—unfortunately."

"So uncomfortable," Tim groaned, burying his face in his hands.

"So wait—you're not mad, then?" Kaylee asked, her voice taking on a slightly higher, hopeful pitch.

Gav chuckled and shook his head. "No, I'm not… I… hold on." He'd made enough faux pas for one lifetime, and wasn't about to add spilling the beans about his engagement without telling Victoria to that list.

Her return message was short and sweet. _You're probably right. But people change. Suffice to say I'm keeping an eye on that kid._ He smiled down at his phone, privately wondering at how perfectly those two words summed it all up. _People change._

 _That they do,_ he typed back. _Hey, um, can I tell K about us now? I kind of got big news from her just now._

"What are you doing?" Kaylee asked, staring at Gav like he was suffering head trauma. He smiled at her and held up one finger, knowing how much waiting drove her bonkers.

 _If she's knocked up she will feel my wrath,_ was Victoria's reply, and Gav choked on nothing.

Coughing slightly, he wrote back, _WTF no, it's just she's dating T._

"Gav," Kaylee growled in a low, warning tone.

"Hold on, just…" Gav mumbled, reading Victoria's next reply while Kaylee demanded, "just?"

 _Oh. Well, yeah, I was starting to suspect._

The absolute shock that spread over Gav's face was evidently too much for Kaylee. She leaned across the table to try to read his phone, and Gav dodged and leaned back, tapping furiously all the while.

 _WHY WOULD YOU NOT TELL ME THAT_

"Gav!"

"Hold yer damn horses, Kay, I'm just try'na see if I can…" Gav lapsed out of the slight twang he hardly ever still used and instead fell silent, waiting on Victoria's next reply.

"Can?" Kaylee asked, now making an honest and shameless swipe for his phone. "Can what? Your half-sentences—" she pawed for it again and Gav shoved his chair back on its rear two legs. "—are killing me!"

 _Go for it btw,_ popped up on his screen and Gav wasted no time. "So Victoria and I are kind of engaged."

Kaylee's shriek broke world records and Gav jumped so bad his chair gave up and toppled over backwards. " _WHAT?_ "

Though Gav had probably just fractured his tailbone, he knew better than to lie there in a pile of defeated older brother limbs. He prepared himself for the attack just in the nick of time, shouting all the while, "I wasn't mad at you for your secret!" Kaylee was upon him in a second and he blocked a punch to the arm.

" _Being engaged is kind of a big deal!_ " she bellowed, desisting with all mercy and going straight for his abs with all ten clawed fingers, intent to punish him by tickling him into an early grave.

Over the din and shouting Tim called, "Uh, congratulations, man!"

"Thanks!" came out on a wheeze, but Gav was reasonably sure Tim couldn't hear it over Kaylee's, " _You're dead, you are so dead, you will not live to see your wedding night!_ "

When Armstrong emerged at a run from the kitchen it was to see Tim trying to haul a rabid, flailing Kaylee off her gasping brother, both men trying not to dissolve into peals of laughter, and Gav's phone ringing nonstop on the table. Gav wanted to explain, but that required air in his lungs, a luxury he didn't foresee anywhere in his near future.

* * *

 _Author's Note: Reminder - I put up review replies in my profile for everyone who leaves me one! If you think you missed a reply to your review, just let me know. I keep my replies in an archive doc even though I clean up my profile every so often to keep the length from getting out of control._


	11. Unflinching Touch :Beth:

Pokémon Azure

Chapter 11: Unflinching Touch

(Beth Larson)

"Well, obviously it'll have to be a small, mobile ceremony," Victoria said, fiddling freely with a copper ring on a chain around her neck. It was adorably obvious as a handicraft, the by-product of winding several loose strands of copper wire together. Now that the cat was well and truly out of the bag, Victoria was wearing it on the outside of her shirt instead of tucked out of sight, and Beth wondered if her sister noticed how often her fingers drifted to it. It made Beth smile, without fail, every time.

"Well, yeah," she said to her sister, refilling her paper cup of lemonade from the glass pitcher on the countertop. Victoria wordlessly held out her own for a top-off, too. "Being on the run kind of demands that."

"Maybe my color pallet can be camoflauge," Victoria teased. Beth wrinkled her nose at her, but after a second Victoria's smile downgraded to a softer, more thoughtful one. "In all seriousness, though. I don't know that I want to celebrate at all. It's not like it can be official until… well. After all this is done." On "all this" she gestured in a vague, broad motion to the house at large.

Beth and Victoria were taking a break from poring over a map of Kanto. The goal was to narrow down the most likely locations of the hideout, since Wyland still refused to divulge anything. They'd shuffled and reshuffled around so many tiny sticky arrows that Beth's eyes were in danger of crossing. Nick and Gav, who were visible through the doorway, were seated together at a fold-out card table. Dissected radio parts were strewn around them and both men were huddled over their work, deep in tech-talk. It was clear this was as much fun as a sleepover marathon of video gaming for the pair, who frequently pointed out various findings to one another while swapping notes and ideas. Nick had delegated a block of his afternoon for working with Gav, but he'd also spent a sizable chunk of his time socking Tim ruthlessly on the shoulder over and over—both a congratulations on his relationship status and a playful punishment over the secrecy. Yet as much levity and help as Nick brought with him, it was all too clear he was under a stringent time limit. Even as engrossed as he was with their fiddling, he glanced to his fluorescent green watch every few minutes.

Beth had just turned back to her sister and opened her mouth to ask a question when Victoria gave a violent full-body shudder and dropped her full-to-the-brim cup of lemonade. It fell to the floor and splashed everywhere, and though Beth shrieked and leapt away, her jeans were soaked.

"Zahlia!" she shouted, even now a laugh threatening to burst through her reprimand. "That was kind of _extremely_ obvious!"

Zahlia bolted into view from where she'd been hiding in the living room. A quiet, rare curse escaped her as she took in the Larson sisters. "Crap—I'm sorry!" She bit the inside of her cheek and grimaced at the mess. "Are you okay?" she asked Victoria, who was shaking herself out.

"Ugh. Yeah. But on a scale of one to ten, ten being 'I am definitely being possessed by a Ghost Pokémon, that was an eleven."

The boys, who had enjoyed an unobstructed view of the show, generally failed at stifling their laughter. Gav in particular wore an expression of sympathy that warred with amusement. He'd been Zahlia's most recent test subject-slash-victim. She was working with her mother daily to perfect Gengar's possession techniques, striving hard to achieve a subtle touch. The goal was for Gengar to slip gently into a host and see through their eyes while the human was none the wiser, and Zahlia's friends had promised to report her progress to her—which, so far, was a big, fat zero.

Beth, laughing, helped her sister mop up the spilled lemonade, shaking out her sodden jeans as she did. "We better change before the others get here," she said, glancing toward their drop zone past where Gav and Nick sat.

"Best hurry," Nick called to them. "The Alakazams ought to have left to get them by now."

Beth grinned and snagged Victoria by the elbow, pulling her toward the stairs with a wide smile plastered to her face, like they were rushing off to some kind of mischief instead of racing the clock to change their pants. Victoria's grimace quickly melted away under Beth's hyperactive influence and the two sisters bolted up the stairs, shrieking with laughter as they shoved into one another with their shoulders and hips like bumper cars.

It was increasingly rare to experience lighthearted moments like these, so Beth sought to manufacture them wherever she could. As her sister and she jostled their way up the stairs, Beth glanced across the way and caught sight of the only closed door on the other side of the second floor. Wyland's. The Pokémon stationed outside today was the Magneton, which had belonged to Tim's father. The steel Pokémon hovered noiselessly, ever in motion but silent in a way that was almost eerie.

Wyland had yet to speak to any of them. Gav and Victoria were the two who tried most often to coax information out of the man, but he was as responsive as a comatose patient. At times Beth almost wanted to try her hand at it, not because she thought she'd have more success, but because the strain and disappointment was weighing on her sister and future brother-in-law. Beth's mother was a social worker, and while Victoria had never taken an active interest in that line of work, Beth at one point had. Granted, Beth had also wanted to be a Gym Leader, an architect, a TV anchor and a scuba diver, but when she'd gone through her social worker/counselor phase her mom had told her a little about the kind of training she'd received. Beth still remembered some of it—how to talk to people who were undermotivated, or riled up, or felt trapped. Beth was nearly to the point of offering some days, but kept it to herself for fear that hitting Wyland with too many different kinds of tactics would set them back rather than help.

There was frustration mounting in their group, however. Beth could see it more obviously in some people, and from the usual sources of discontent. But she thought she could sense it in surprising places, too. He was good at hiding it, but the weariness Tim's face took on whenever Wyland was brought up in conversation had been taking on a darker edge, as of late. She wasn't sure if it was all in her head or not.

Victoria branched off from Beth to slip into the room she shared with Gav, and Beth continued down the hall to her own room at the very end. She made quick work of changing, and when she popped back out onto the second floor landing it was just in time to see their first guest arrive.

Wilbur stumbled a little on his landing, grumbled, then shook out his bad leg and leaned heavily on his cane. Beth cupped her hands around her mouth and hollered, "yoo hoo!" at the police chief, waving at him as he peered up her way. His frown melted away into a warm grin and he returned the wave. Beth bounded down the steps two at a time and was already deep in conversation with Wilbur by the time Victoria's door opened upstairs.

"Hate teleportation, can't stand it—though of course I more'n understand the necessity… security measure." Wilbur glanced over at Gav and Nick's table, and after a second his eyes lit up. "Say! You really do have an amateur radio, there! Boy, can I show you a thing or two…" He headed over to the boys, and when they pulled up a chair for him he graciously refused it, preferring to remain on his feet. Soon they were lost in their own world.

Beth rejoined Victoria, waiting on tenterhooks for their next guest. Though Wilbur was beyond useful in many ways, today his primary focus was to provide insight into radio frequencies and transmitting. It was an idea Beth and Spikey had cooked up together during some of their brainstorming sessions over Zachariah's secure cell line. Neither woman had the know-how to even figure out if creating their own radio station was feasible, so they'd turned the technicalities over to their tech team. Wilbur, who was as oldschool as they came, had considerable knowledge to bring to the (now, literal) table.

If their experiment yielded the proper results, the possibilities were endless. One of the foundational pillars of Nakawa's organization was its secrecy—and if Beth, Spikey and the others could knock that out from under him… it was a long-shot, but there was nothing to lose in exploring it as an avenue.

Though they'd been expecting her, Beth still felt like the woman was summoned by her thoughts. With a rush of displaced air and a little whoop of delighted surprise, Spikey appeared in their midsts. Beth emitted a high-pitched sound of delight as Spikey burst out with a sudden laugh, and they rushed to meet each other in a hug worthy of old friends rather than two women who had never before occupied the same room.

"You're here! And—like— _real!_ " Beth crowed, beaming to the point that heat rose in her cheeks.

"With fleshy parts and everything!" Spikey agreed, holding Beth back at arm's-length and grinning at her with her eyes nearly crinkled shut from the force of her expression. "I swear to god, every single time I teleport I nearly land on my goddamn ass—oh!" Spikey said, suddenly catching sight of the table of boys. It wasn't Gav's or Nick's presence that seemed to throw her off stride, though. Color rose in her cheeks and she stammered out an explanation to the police chief. "Oh, goodness—sorry! I didn't realize—"

But Wilbur had spun around and straightened up at once, and lifted his free hand quickly to put a stop to her apologies. "No, no no, not at all, please." He tried to cross to her quicker than he normally did, and extended his hand to shake hers. "I listen to EUTS all the time, big, um… well… 'fan' just sounds…"

"Weird, right? Well, good, because I'm a… an, insert-something-better-here of yours, too! That, um, was me trying to say I'm a fan of your work. Only, it didn't really come out…"

"No! It did, I understood—"

"Oh! Haha, good…"

"Only…" Wilbur trailed off, finally releasing her hand a little late. "Only, I can't for the life of me figure out… pardon but, why the heck would you be a fan of a grumpy old police chief?"

Far from fishing for compliments, Wilbur seemed genuinely perplexed, and Spikey's reply was complete earnestness, her green eyes going wide as she stared at Wilbur like she couldn't believe what he'd just said. "Why would I be a something-less-weird-than-fan? Are you kidding me? Your career has spanned decades, you joined the force at 17, not 18 like they say—you lied about your age to get in early, made sergeant at 22, busted open the underground gambling ring case in Celadon one year after that…"

Beth had thought Spikey was pretty red in the face upon seeing Wilbur, but it was absolutely nothing compared to the color Wilbur achieved now. "I—well—that is, to say—wow."

"Oh god. I'm not a stalker, I swear! It's just, I know things, so many weird things amassed over way too many years—" Spikey hastily tried to explain, but Wilbur cut her off.

"Oh, you're fine, ma'am, please—I was only, just a little surprised… please, won't you come sit? I'm not using this chair, easier for me to stay standing… if I sit the hip might not let me get back up." A look crossed Wilbur's face that told Beth how much he wished he hadn't just divulged that piece of information, but if anything, Spikey's expression warmed to him even more.

"Oh god, I so feel you. I got down on the ground to do some yoga yesterday, what the hell I was thinking I couldn't tell you now, I was convinced they'd find me there in a week with my face eaten off by my Meowth…" Wilbur barked out a sudden laugh at this, had a minor coughing fit, and Spikey and he moved their awkward, painfully adorable flirtation over to Gav and Nick. Beth was about ready to pass out from sheer cuteness overload. They were such an odd, out of the left field match, Spikey with her crazy, flamboyant hair and wacky mom persona, and Wilbur with his gruff, hardened exterior that hid a gentleman beneath it, and it took all of Beth's willpower not to outwardly squeal or throw herself headlong into meddling matchmaking. Then again—she probably wouldn't even need to lift a finger here.

Movement caught Beth's eye from the stairwell, and she watched for a moment as Blake moved silently through the living room, pausing at the window and peering out into the sunlit yard through squinted eyes. After a moment he retreated to the kitchen, and Beth tuned back into the conversation between Wilbur and Spikey.

"Way I see it, we need tech, venue, and security—we sure as heck don't need for content… but, oh," she said, cutting herself off suddenly and looking around.

Victoria seemed to read her mind. "They're coming." Beth's phone buzzed in her bra. "Just sent a mass text out for everyone to assemble."

The others gathered quickly, filtering in from the hallway that led from the greenhouse, filing down the stairs, sometimes appearing as if out of nowhere. Amaris and Wilbur locked eyes, nodded to one another, and, after a moment, Amaris crossed to stand near him and Spikey, lapsing into quiet conversation. Once everyone was gathered around the table, Gav and Nick looking like they felt a little weird being surrounded this way, Spikey repeated herself.

"Okay! Project Super Duper Top Secret Pirate Radio Arrrr." There were several laughs and Beth smiled broadly, listening with rapture to how Spikey so effortlessly put a group of such disparate personalities at ease. "I figured our main needs were tech, venue, security. How we looking on tech?" she asked the boys, and Gav, Nick and Wilbur all exchanged quick looks.

Nick took point. "It's simple enough to rig a small transmitter—hundred feet or so, people do them all the time… but for something bigger and more powerful, we'll need a little more time, better supplies… almost all of which I can get us, but some parts may take longer to scare up."

"Electric Pokémon can help boost us as well," Gav pointed out. "Shouldn't be too taxing on them if the transmissions aren't too long."

"That brings us to venue," Wilbur added, though he frowned a second later. "Actually, I should say 'venues,' with an 's.' Problem with radio transmissions… they can be tracked. First few times we do this, I figure they'll be too taken aback to do a lot, but the people we're up against won't be sitting on their thumbs for long."

Spikey picked up on his train of thought at once. "So, we have to be mobile… and… damn. We have to have a new, secure venue each time we broadcast?"

"That's right," he said. "Food for thought, we've got time to pick and choose—won't be ready to go live for a while yet." There were scattered, thoughtful nods.

"Security then isn't so much of an issue," Blake mumbled, still distracted with frequent glances at their teleportation drop zone and the window, but contributing nevertheless. "Just gotta be sure we go in, broadcast, break the equipment back down and hightail it outta there in a snappy fashion."

"Sounds right to me," Wilbur agreed. "We won't have a headquarters, so to speak."

"And, goes without saying, we can never broadcast anywhere that will link the show to anyone we need to protect," Nick added. There were more nods.

"Damn," Kaylee joked mildly. "I was looking forward to giving Spikey an interview from the comfort of Armstrong's hot tub."

Spikey snapped her fingers in an "aw, shucks!" kind of motion and Gav smiled tentatively at his sister. She pretend-glared at him, but there was no actual malice in the expression. Beth could never keep the smile from her face whenever the Harrison siblings lapsed back into their running gag of Kaylee wanting to murder him over keeping the engagement a secret for so long.

Spikey twiddled a lime green pencil between her fingers, opening her mouth to speak but taking a while to form the words. "You know… as awful as that rash of media coverage after Pallet was… it actually had one unexpected benefit. Your families all have protective detail now."

Beth lifted her eyebrows. "Really? Mom does?"

Spikey nodded. "All of you with direct family out in the general public." It took Beth a second, but she picked up on the unspoken fine print—and judging by the way Victoria's posture stiffened beside her by just a hair, her sister got it, too. Their incarcerated father didn't exactly need additional protective detail assigned to him with correctional officers around him all day in prison.

There wasn't time to dwell, though. Spikey was moving them along. "When we get this pirated station going, I'll, of course, tell everything exactly as it is… but…" She trailed off, looking remorseful, but Wilbur cut in.

"But none of you can be actual guests on the show," he said. "Spikey'll already be questioned about what she's reporting, but if they had concrete evidence that she's in touch with fugitives…"

Gav nodded. "We don't want to compromise her."

"As it is," Spikey said, "I don't expect EUTS to be on the air for very long once this gets off the ground." A few of them gave dismayed exclamations at this, but Spikey rushed to quiet their regrets and worries. "No, honest, I'm not upset about it so please, don't any of you worry! I'd so much rather be doing this—EUTS won't be shut down forever. We'll crack this wide open."

A few of their number still looked aggrieved, but Beth gave Spikey a smile rife with gratitude, admiration and affection. The older woman grinned at them. "Sides, when they shut down EUTS you _know_ it'll just make the other program's ratings soar!" No one could argue with that.

Those gathered split off into smaller, more specialized discussion groups though no one had explicitly announced a halt to the larger talk. Beth tuned in to each bunch like a radio set to "scan" and soon determined they were in three sub-divisions—tech, show content, and security logistics.

She caught Blake slipping away to return to the window, a frown creasing his brow as he checked his watch. Knowing what was bothering him, Beth snuck off after him, tempting as the radio content brainstorming was. He was mid-text when she sidled up next to him.

"Do… you think he got lost?" she asked, keeping her tone light.

"If only you knew how likely that is," Blake grunted. He stared listlessly at his phone, and once the "sent" confirmation popped up on his screen he groaned and shoved the device away. "I knew we should have just sent Jynx to get him."

Beth bit back a smile with great difficulty. "We could still do that. It's not too late."

Blake's reply was fatalistic and morose. "No, it's too late. He's probably teleported himself to the middle of the ocean or the top of Mt. Moon by now."

Beth lowered her head and lost her battle against giggling. She felt rather than saw Blake turning his head to glare at her.

"Go right on ahead. Laugh at my turmoil."

"I'm not laughing at your turmoil," she protested, badly stifling her mirth.

"'Chortling,' then."

Beth dropped her mouth open in affront. "'Chortling?' What am I, a portly old banker with a monocle?"

Blake didn't have a chance to retort. At that moment a new figure and an Abra appeared not three feet from where they stood. Beth shrieked and jumped, but Blake just turned to the newcomer and glared.

"Where were you? You're like a half an hour late."

It was only understandable that the man looked surprised—Beth had just greeted him with a scream, after all—but after a second she realized that might just be his default expression. He rushed Blake for a hug, and Blake relented to one a little reluctantly.

"I wound up in the wrong house!" he exclaimed, sounding more delighted than bothered by that fact. "But the lady there was real nice, fed me, even."

Blake's dark eyes widened with fury. "You were frickin' eating lunch with a stranger?! Why didn't you have your phone?!"

"Oh—I left it at home, sorry!"

Blake's father, Toby, was certainly not at all what Beth had been expecting. He had dark eyes like Blake, and black hair shot through with silver at the temples, but he was so frank, expressive, bedraggled and scrawny that Blake just seemed older, taller and broader by comparison. Beth wondered when Blake had so outstripped his father in the height department, a change that certainly didn't seem to be lost on Toby. The smaller man was giving his son a slightly misty look now, which Blake didn't appear willing to tolerate. Even now he was waving over to the others, several of whom were giving him inquisitive looks. He gave a thumbs up. "It is, indeed, my other DNA donor."

Toby laughed at that, then peered around his son. "Ah!" he said when his eyes lighted upon her. "You must be Beth!"

Beth, thrown off that he had accurately guessed who she was just on sight, glanced to Blake but saw he was still distracted by the others. "That's me!" she said, grinning and crossing to shake his hand. "Glad you wound up in friendly territory before coming here!"

Toby opened his mouth to reply, face lighting up the way someone's did when they had a story to share, but what Blake barked across the room next stopped him short.

"Zahlia! C'mere."

Zahlia emerged from where she'd been hidden behind Jason and Orion, looking a little uncertain, but Toby hastened to wave her over as well. Yet Beth couldn't miss the way he'd blanched, just a little, at the sight of her. It had to be some kind of resemblance to their mother—Beth wondered how much of a dead-ringer Zahlia was for a younger Nancy.

Zahlia made her way over to Toby, Beth and Blake, and though she was as gifted as ever when it came to shielding her discomfort behind a mask, Beth knew better now. Her careful poise gave away her nerves, but before she could even get a word out, she was yanked into a hug.

"It's good to see you again," Toby said quietly, his expression a complicated one, but after a second, Zahlia hugged him back. The Nakawas always seemed so stiff and rigid during embraces, but Beth couldn't fight the smile that broke out over her face at the unguarded, subtly moved look that transformed Zahlia's careful face. They may not ever be naturals when it came to being hugged, but in Beth's book that just meant they had to be embraced all the more.

Beth slipped away from the family reunion, a secondhand buoyancy informing the lightness in her step. When she returned to the card table gathering, it was to see that the conversation breakdowns had changed up a little. Amaris and Wilbur were deep in discussion now, and when Beth rounded the table better she saw that Gina, who had been blocked from sight, was also part of whatever they were discussing. That brought another smile to her face—she hadn't seen much of Amaris talking lately, period, and it wasn't much of a guess to figure out who among their group had the best chance of getting through to him. Gina, hands deep in the pockets of her tattered blue jeans, seemed to be largely letting Amaris and Wilbur talk, interjecting only here and there with a quick question, but the way she cast small glances toward Amaris, even when Wilbur was speaking animatedly, wasn't lost on Beth.

Spikey, meanwhile, had joined the tech talk table. Beth heard her say, "Yeah, I guess torching everything within eyesight isn't exactly an elegant solution!"

Beth slid into an open seat. "Nonsense! That's always the best solution."

Nick grinned her way, then pulled a hand through his disheveled dark hair. "Right?!" Then he dropped his hand to the table, rocked his head back on his shoulders and sighed, the perfect picture of exhaustion. "Pyromania aside, we're talking about how to perma-wipe any files we come across—whenever we actually get to the place it's all held."

From behind Beth, Toby said, "Irreversible, devastating data destruction? Look no further!"

"He's kind of an expert in 'this disaster can never be undone,' yeah," Blake vouched, leaning against Beth's chair.

"Let's rope AZ in on this too," Gav suggested, and Spikey spun around to grin over at Wilbur and snag his attention from Amaris and Gina. A moment later Alan Zachariah's voice had joined the discussion dead center on the table in a cleared patch among the pile of tech.

Beth, knowing this wasn't going to be her area of expertise, removed herself from the chair and orbited the various talks instead. Kaylee joined her and, after a wordless glance, they retreated to watch from the other side of the room.

The silence between them stretched for a little longer until finally Kaylee said, her voice uncharacteristically soft, "It's so different from how it was when Gav and I first started all of this." Beth smiled at her, not needing to speak, and Kaylee returned the look before turning back to survey the sight before them. "There were so many people who didn't take us seriously… I kind of stopped believing anyone would."

Beth's smile almost turned a touch sad, but sorrow was as far as could be from what she felt. She sidled closer to Kaylee, nudging her shoulder gently, and Kaylee fondly nudged her back. Across the room Spikey tossed her head back and laughed, Wilbur said, "oh damn, you're right, ain't ya?" and Beth's chest felt ready to burst.

Sometime after lunch, the group at large reconvened. The subject, this time, was Gym Leader recruitment.

"Oh—" Beth said, sitting bolt upright in her chair and biting her lip.

"Yes, Beth, I think everyone is okay with you going to Cerulean," Victoria said on a sigh, leveling a fondly exasperated look her way. Beth uttered a quiet _squee_ while Kaylee snapped her fingers as if disappointed.

"Damn! I wanted Cerulean." Their gathered group laughed.

Gav was wearing his Serious, Responsible Adult look, though. "I kind of don't like the idea of any of us going anywhere alone, though. We should buddy up, at least."

"I'll go," Blake said from somewhere over her shoulder. "Zahlia and I were the only ones not in the news, so… just kind of makes sense."

Beth caught Victoria giving Blake an inscrutable look and tried for a second to decipher it, then realized if she tried for too long she'd be caught staring. She glanced away.

"Well," Victoria said after a pause, "if we're splitting these up based on interest… I'd like Celadon."

Zahlia opened her mouth to say something, probably that she'd join her, but stopped short. Beth wasn't sure why, but a moment later Gina pitched in.

"Zahlia, your work with Gengar… I mean, that's really important. I don't wonder if, um, maybe it's better if you keep working on that?" There were a few murmurs of assent and a couple of frowns.

"I'll go," a voice said, and it actually took Beth a second to realize Amaris was the one who had spoken. It was so out of the ordinary for him to pitch in on conversations these days that she'd almost forgotten what his voice sounded like. She wished there wasn't, but there was a dragging, weird silence after he offered.

"Sounds good," Gav said, like he'd missed his cue in a play by a few seconds and was rushing to say his line. "And, well… since that's really all we have for now, we'll start there. Hopefully the Yawa sisters, or Zo and Jo can give us even more names once we're done talking to them." Scattered nods met his words.

Orion preceded his first contribution to the meeting with a slow, heavy sigh that told Beth he would be taking the mood down a few pegs. "I think it's high time we talk about some more serious self-defense options."

There was another short, slightly puzzled silence, but after a second Kaylee said, "Okay? I mean, are you talking like, hand-to-hand combat for… for us? In the event we can't use our Pokémon, or whatever?"

Orion nodded her way. "That's exactly what I mean. Even with Alana working on a way to reintroduce the Pokéball serum to our teams in a small degree… we can't exactly just assume that it'll be enough to counter their Masterball tech." Beth noticed the way he deliberately did not look at Jason while he spoke. She was unable to keep herself from glancing slightly at the younger Fremont brother, but Jason was looking resolutely at Orion, not giving anything away on his serious face. "We have to be prepared for a worst-case scenario where we, and we alone, are keeping ourselves safe from a threat."

There was another thoughtful silence. When Gina spoke up even she sounded dubious about her own suggestion. "So, like… weapons?"

"Maybe," Kaylee mumbled. "I don't know how great we'd be at… uh… armed combat." It said something about their general state of affairs if Kaylee, one of their most physically active, combative and scrappy members, still felt uncomfortable with the idea of carrying a weapon.

"Honestly," Orion added, reluctance steeped in his tone, "I don't want to be a complete devil's advocate here, but a weapon in an untrained hand is almost worse than not having a weapon at all. All you're offering at that point is an opportunity for your opponent to take it from you and use it against you."

"Swell," Victoria said, rubbing her face. "So we need something we can all get trained up in pretty fast."

Orion nodded. "At least when it comes to weapon retention. We need something hard to take away—or at least, not potentially lethal to us if it _does_ get taken away."

Wilbur spoke up, straightening from where he'd been slumped against his cane, deep in thought. "Well… here's an idea. There's this stuff we use in the force… it's a kind of pepper spray, but it's powerful enough to dissuade even most Pokémon." There were hisses and grimaces around the table. Wilbur nodded. "I know. Believe me, you don't want to get hit with this crap. It can be very debilitating, especially if you're not used to it. We actually don't even issue it to our officers until they've gone through a three-day training course and have been exposed to it themselves in a controlled environment."

Alan Zachariah's voice spoke up from the table and Beth jumped a little, having totally forgotten he was still contributing to this conversation through the phone. "You are not allowed to spray them in the face until I'm there to watch." Beth barked out a surprised laugh along with several of the others. The more they spoke with Zachariah, the more his dry but disarming brand of humor came out.

"I do like that idea more than giving us all combat knives," Gav admitted. "Any way we can get some of those?"

"Not the police-grade, since that's a pretty heavily-documented controlled item," Wilbur said, "but they have civilian versions that are only a little less potent. I'll find some vendors and order you all some."

Beth cleared her throat. "You guys were kidding about spraying us with it though, right?" she asked. At the twin dark chuckles from Wilbur and Zachariah's voice, she blanched slightly.

" _Thanks, Orion,_ " Kaylee said with deadly sarcasm, and Orion put his hands up in a _don't shoot_ pose that made several of them laugh. After a second, a shadow of his old sheepish smile flitted across his face, tired and muted though it was. Beth soaked it in while it lasted, adding that look to her growing list of rarities to savor whenever they came around.

* * *

That night, after everyone had gone home, Beth's eyes itched with the tell-tale fatigue born of a long, full day. She couldn't stop yawning, but was also certain if she retired to bed she'd stare at the darkness of her ceiling for hours.

To say they'd been productive would have been a gross understatement. The tech table had a rudimentary shopping list for their radio transmitter, blueprints about how it would go together, and task lists divided up between them. Toby had departed with a promise to bring along "someone else" who could help them with intel-gathering now that so many of their number were so notorious. Spikey and Wilbur were going to feel out some trusted contacts in the entertainment/broadcasting and law enforcement industries respectively to try to lay the groundwork for amassing more numbers for when this eventually expanded.

Beth slipped into the kitchen, filled a glass of water, and tanked it. The deepest thought in her happily fuzzed-out brain was whether she should go for a second glass—before her phone buzzed in the pocket of her fluffy borrowed robe.

Beth's heart sank. There was a chance this was Victoria, texting to see if she could slip into her bedroom for a talk, but given how burnt out her older sister had looked when she'd trodden up the stairs, that was unlikely. Beth pulled her cell out of the pocket, tapped a button to light up the screen, and felt her face crumple with conflicted misery.

 _From: Rei_

 _i don't know what im trying to accomplish anymore. just wanted to say hi, i guess. i think about you and your friends all the time._

Beth thought she'd have to blink back tears, but perhaps this was so much a part of her new norm that she was growing desensitized to it. The thought bothered her more than she'd been expecting it to. If she eventually stopped having a serious emotional reaction to Rei's messages—guilt, sorrow, regret—would that mean it would become easier and easier to ignore him? Would keeping him waiting, stuck in limbo, be her "new norm" too?

Without planning it out in detail, Beth started to write back. Victoria had told her they trusted her—the ball was in her court, and always had been. The only person stopping her from fixing this, solving it, and making a final decision was her.

She didn't let herself edit. If she went down that rabbit hole she'd never emerge. When she was done she scanned it just once, quickly, for typos that would be too confusing to decipher, then punched send.

 _Rei, I'm sorry I haven't written before now. I don't expect you to forgive me for that. I know I shouldn't have left you hanging for so long. I only hope you understand how scared I am for you and Ida. It's not an excuse, but it's kept me quiet for too long. I do want to talk. You and she deserve to know what's going on. You've always had a stake in this. All I ask is, please, give me until tomorrow to gather myself. Then I'll get in touch, and I'll tell you everything you want to know._

The second the message was marked "delivered," Beth powered down her phone. She somehow knew Rei wouldn't be able to honor her wishes, and was certain tomorrow morning when she turned it back on she'd have dozens of missed calls.

She'd thought the nerves would kill her, but strangely, now that the deed was done, all she felt was a sagging, heavy relief. Pleased, but exhausted anew, Beth cast a longing glance up the stairs that led to her bedroom door. She knew, just like she knew Rei was calling her over and over even now, that she still wouldn't be able to retreat into the arms of sleep just yet.

From the far end of the expansive living room, a dull thud sounded against one wall. Beth frowned in that direction, but after a second she put the layout of the huge house together in her mind. One of the larger training rooms was on the other side of that particular wall. Curious, Beth made her way closer, and when she was poised near the slightly-ajar door, another _thunk_ and Blake's voice uttering a soft curse met her ears again.

Beth pushed the door open a little more, peering inside, and had to immediately stifle a laugh as Blake said, about as animatedly as he could muster, "You know bats aren't _actually_ blind. That's just a saying. Just so you know."

His Golbat— _his_ actual Golbat, not Zeke's, since it wasn't losing its mind—was fluttering around erratically, and that solved the mystery of the intermittent thunking sounds. Farfetch'D was flitting around it every so often, but returned frequently to Blake's outstretched forearm. Farfetch'D looked about as frustrated as his trainer, staring up at the bat with a bleak, dull look that was a dead-ringer for Blake. Beth opened her mouth to make her presence known, but just then Farfetch'D took off again to attack Golbat, Blake heaved an agitated sigh, and a second later he tore his shirt up and off, tossing it to the ground beside him.

Beth's breath stilled in her throat and her words died there as well. It had been months since she'd seen his scars—in fact, the last time she'd properly seen them was when she was still changing their dressings. Her eyes trailed down the jagged, wicked pale lines while Blake shrugged his shoulders up, dropped them, twisted right, twisted left, caught sight of her over his shoulder and froze.

"How's 'the worst?'" Beth asked at once, stunned at her quick cover. Her eyes snapped up from Blake's torso to his face a little late, though.

Blake just stared at her for a second, his expression blank, before realization rose his dark eyebrows a little. She hadn't been sure he'd pick up on the reference to how each and every Golbat back in VR had been "the worst" to her. He smirked. "He's still the worst, but now it's because he's lazy as hell and doesn't want to train."

Beth crossed the room to draw level with Blake and cast her gaze up to the bat. It twitched through a few sporadic flapping motions, dipped suddenly, and totally missed a chance to engage Farfetch'D in combat. "He doesn't look lazy to me. Looks like he's just spazzing out."

"He's lazy," Blake assured her. "You just think all Golbats look the same. Golbat racist."

Beth laughed and shook her head, punching Blake lightly on the arm. While they watched, Farfetch'D tried to Fury Attack Golbat, but the bat fell in a perfect, upside-down tumble and disengaged once again, flying straight into the far wall instead with another muted _thud._ Beth winced a little, Farfetch'D looked at her as if to say, _see what I have to put up with?_ and Beth had to admit she could kind of see how Golbat was lazy now.

From the corner of her eye, Blake stretched again, and now that she could see his face, she caught the grimace of badly-concealed pain that pulled one of his eyes almost shut. Without thinking, she asked, "Your back okay?"

He winced again, just a small thing, and while it could have been from the ache in his muscles, Beth somehow didn't think it was that. "Fine," he said, a little bluntly. When he opened his mouth, said nothing, then shut it and glanced up at his bat again, she knew he'd been trying to think of a quip to change the subject and had failed.

Beth watched Golbat and Farfetch'D failing to train together for a while, trying to figure out what to do. Normally it was effortless for her to read body language like this, figure out the unspoken, and act accordingly. But with Blake, somehow—and she didn't know when this had happened—it had changed. Sometimes Beth was wrong and struck out with her friends. Just the other day she'd tried to give Amaris some tea and had been rebuffed, not cruelly, but with a very certain finality. Normally when things like this happened she brushed it off, water beads off her waxy feathers, and turned her attention to helping out somewhere else.

But with Blake—Beth honestly felt like it was Zahlia, then her—and then no one else when it came to the people he might concede to confide in. She'd read the protectiveness both Nakawa siblings felt toward Nancy in a heartbeat, and today she'd learned that Blake felt a similar sort of exasperated, fond parenting urge for his biological father. And when it came to Zahlia and her brother… for the most part, they seemed to let one another deal with issues on their own. There wasn't anything wrong with that, but what it meant was that, if Beth messed this up and he retreated… there wasn't going to be anyone else here to try.

She cleared her throat. "Hey," she said quietly. "You know, I still owe you a backrub." Blake frowned up at his Pokémon, and after a puzzled moment, turned that frown her way. When no recognition dawned across his face, she elaborated. "You know? The night we all got drunk and played that super weird board game? You were right about the PokéRAP and you said if you were, I owed you a back rub."

"You have the most bizarre, selective, creepily perfect memory ever," Blake blurted out, seemingly unable to stop himself from saying this. It was clear that wasn't the message he was going for, though, and after a second he cleared his throat and looked away again. "It's… fine, I'm good. Though it's always nice to hear I'm right." He glanced sidelong at her and quirked one corner of his mouth up in a small smirk.

It wasn't a total strike-out, but it wasn't a success. Beth puzzled over what to do, looking back up at the Pokémon just to have something to occupy herself. It was clear he was stiff, sore, tired and run down, and she wondered if it was just the idea of being touched at all that put him off.

But when he reached down for the shirt he'd shucked off even though it was still oppressively hot in the room, she understood.

Before she could think better of it, Beth put a hand on his shoulder to still him. "It's—you don't have to…" She jutted her chin at the shirt when he peered up at her. A flash of discomfort crossed his face before it melted back into his neutral expression. "I… I can see why they… bother you, but… they don't bother me."

To his credit, Blake didn't play dumb. But he didn't stand up and leave the shirt where it lay, either. Trapped in limbo, Beth dug deep for more words, knowing she didn't have the luxury of time to craft them just right.

"They're good scars."

Blake stared at her, waiting, either for her to make more sense or for him to understand what she was saying, and while he paused Beth tried to form sentences that weren't such train wrecks. "What?" he finally asked.

"I only mean—when you think about it. Comparatively." She pulled her hand back from his shoulder, but just so she could stoop down and sit with him. "Comparatively, they're good. Look—look at Orion's, for example." She swallowed, the nerves that hadn't been there when she'd finally texted Rei battling each other furiously beneath her skin now. "His are from… way I see it, his are from anger. Hate. Someone trying to kill him. Amaris' burns are the same way." She broke eye contact, something she tried never to do when she was trying to make a real appeal to someone, but something about Blake's unbroken, serious dark gaze was making this practically impossible. "But, yours… I mean, Grumpy gave them to you. He didn't want to, but he had to, to save you. Because he loves you. Your scars are from love."

 _Holy crap_ , Beth thought miserably, glad she wasn't looking at Blake any longer. Who did she think she was talking to? Gina? To someone as pragmatic as Blake, this had to be utterly laughable. At the very least, maybe she'd amuse him. Nothing she did with her hands looked like anything other than fiddly, empty movements, painfully staged, so she balled them into fists and kept them still.

After a awful, protracted half a minute of dead silence, Blake suddenly shifted and Beth snapped her gaze up in time to see him turn his back on her. For a horrible second her heart plummeted into her stomach—shit, she'd genuinely offended him by making light of his trauma and injuries—but then he cleared his throat.

"So? Do I get that backrub or what?"

Beth's breath exploded from her lungs in a grateful, nervous giggle, and she stumbled a bit over her reply. "Fsht, maybe not with _that_ attitude." She edged closer, got up on her knees, and stared down at the back of his head for a second.

She'd given Victoria about a thousand back rubs, as well as her dad, Gav, and several friends from school as well. She could probably find knots and spots of tension in her sleep. For some reason, here and now, her brain was stalling out on her. With a sudden jolt she realized her weird hesitation could be seen as faintheartedness over the scars, so without further ado she rested her hands on his shoulders, at least for a step one.

His skin was so warm to the touch it was almost hot, which shocked her so much she left her hands there, heavy and useless for a second. She'd somehow expected him to be cooler—she didn't know why. Maybe it was his demeanor—reserved, aloof. But he was burning up, almost like he had a low-grade fever, but before that could turn into actual, fretting worry, Blake grumped, "Truly, you have a gift."

Beth snort-laughed, painfully relieved he'd broken the tension. She gently flicked the back of his ear, he chuckled at her, and finally she started to knead at his tight muscles.

Blake Nakawa melted down to butter. His head rocked forward, chin nearly hitting his chest, but after a second he managed to redouble his efforts to sit up semi-straight. Beth bit back a smile, though she didn't need to—he couldn't see the way heat rushed to her face out of sheer pride that she was finally, truly making a difference here. She worked her hands lower, pressing her thumbs into the tender places on either side of his spine, and he curved his back to give her better access, a quiet groan escaping him.

That tiny sound almost stopped her again, but she fought through the brief spell of disorientation and kept moving. She didn't want Blake to know she'd been thrown off. He sighed, deep and slow and heavy when she pressed her knuckles into his lumbar in steady, slow-motion punches, working her way back up, and actually hummed when her right thumb found a tell-tale spot of bunched-up muscle tucked under the wing of his shoulder blade. She devoted all her attention to working that spot of tension out of his body in a vain, desperate attempt to ignore what was happening to her.

It was hot in here, to be sure, but that didn't account for the way her face was burning. Her shoulders, arms and fingers ached a little from how much pressure she was applying, but that didn't explain the hammering of her heart. This wasn't exactly a workout. And she'd just tanked a glass of water in the kitchen—her throat shouldn't be this dry.

Blake twitched, only once, when Beth's fingers skated across his longest scar. But she didn't give any sign at all she'd noticed—moved right back over it again when she needed to come back the way she'd gone. She hadn't been lying—they didn't bother her, and she struggled to portray that in her unflinching touch.

Beth lost track of time. She might have spent all night here, the Pokémon above her having given up on real training long ago. Blake lost the battle to keep his head up, letting his chin rest on his collarbone, tilted a little to the left since she was spending so much time on his tenser right side. His chest rose and fell slow and even, and if it weren't for the periodic, tiny groans of approval she'd have thought he was asleep.

In the end it was her aching shoulder that stopped her. She retreated, reluctant and relieved in almost equal measure, and rolled out her right shoulder. "Sorry, that's about my limit. I need to lift, bro."

Blake chuckled sleepily, giving a big, languid stretch and yawn. She could no longer even picture the skin-and-bones kid he'd been when they met. He'd nearly caught up to Orion in height by now. "I… wanna say something witty and clever but… I guess backrubs are deadly poison to… brain… parts."

Beth lowered her burning face into her hands and laughed weakly. "It's cool. You and your poor 'brain parts' get a free pass this evening."

"I feel like I should give _you_ a backrub now," Blake grumbled, turning to face her, and Beth turned away, standing up and covering by pretending she was stretching. "Your shoulder's gotta be murder."

"Psht, if we do _that_ we'll be trapped in a never-ending cycle of reciprocal backrubs until the day we die," she answered, striving hard for a lighthearted tone and wondering if she was failing as abysmally as she felt she was.

"Hey—that's not a terrible way to go," Blake pointed out, and Beth smiled at the far wall.

"Fair point. But, rain check on the backrub," she said, peeking over her shoulder just long enough to lock eyes with him for a second and smile. She didn't want to bolt from the room without even glancing at him once, but embossed across her brain, underlined, italicized, bolded and in bright red font were the words _TACTICAL RETREAT._

"I'm bushed—don't stay up too late, yeah?" she said.

"Dude, no way. I may not make it to bed, I'm a really tall noodle now. If I'm not at breakfast tomorrow come poke me awake here?" Blake asked her turned back, and she thought his tone sounded just a touch concerned. A pang of regret took her at that, but she couldn't bring herself to look back at him again.

"Aye aye, Baron Blake. Goodnight."

"Peace out, Lady Larson."

Beth made it out the door, up the stairs and into her bedroom. Then she slumped to the floor, back pressed up against her closed door, and buried her face in her hands again. _And oh, good,_ she thought weakly, dark humor rattling loose a quiet, shrill kind of giggle from deep in her chest. _It's not like we'll be traveling alone to Cerulean together soon or anything. Awesome._


	12. Getting Results :Jason:

Pokémon Azure

Chapter 12: Getting Results

(Jason Fremont)

It took all of Jason's willpower not to reach out and rest his hand against Venusaur's still face—and Jason knew better than anyone how negligible his own willpower was at times. He also knew, keenly, how much of an idiot he was being right now. He ought to be slapping the electrodes down as hastily as possible and fleeing the enclosure at top speed. But he couldn't help himself. His reasons for stalling were twofold—he wanted to prove to himself that he'd never be afraid of his starter… his oldest companion. And this prolonged moment was the only one he'd had up close with Venusaur in too long. He had to make it last.

When he finally retreated to spy Tim watching him calmly, he found he couldn't quite meet the Champ's eyes. He was grateful to the other man for not rushing him, nor passing judgment on his foolhardiness. Yet somehow that same quiet just made Jason feel worse. Orion's protective anger, or his father's harsh truths—Jason could bite back against those. But this quiet acceptance, used first by Gina, and now Tim… Jason didn't know what to do with that.

When he finally did look up he wound up just nodding to Tim's Gengar in thanks, finding it easier to interact with the Pokémon than its trainer. Gengar tossed up a peace sign to Jason, patiently awaiting its trainer's command. Tim wasn't looking his way, so Jason took the time to glance quickly at him. There was a flavor of sorrow written on Tim's face, old and subtle, if Jason could ever call himself qualified to judge an expression this way. Who knew—maybe Tim just felt bad for Venusaur. Jason sure as hell wasn't going to pry.

"Ready when you are," Tim murmured, still staring straight ahead. Another uncomfortable surge of gratitude swept over Jason at these words—a quiet offer for Jason to soak up more time with his Pokémon while everything was quiet.

But Jason had never cared much for waiting, nor delaying the inevitable. Now was no different. He sighed, tried to burn the deceptively peaceful image before him into his mind and said, "Now."

Gengar deferred either to his verbal command or a cue from Tim too subtle for Jason to pick up on. The ghost vanished, hiding in shadow and ready to assist, and Tim lifted the object in his left hand to his mouth. Jason wondered, vaguely, where one could get their hands on a Pokéflute, but the thought was like a too-brief breath of air while he drowned in the sea of his rising nerves.

The tone was weirdly soothing—Jason could tell that even through his dread. How strange that a song exactly like a lullaby, played on such a melodic instrument, could rouse a sleeper instead of dragging them deeper down.

And to be sure, Venusaur was rousing. The enormous, dark leaves along his back quivered, the dual-colored, splotchy petals shifting. He groaned, just once—the sound translated the same nonverbal way through the GIZMO speaker—

The last semblance of peace fled. Venusaur surged upright, his roar deafening. There was no point, Jason thought bitterly, fighting a cringe, beating it back down. They'd gone through all the trouble to knock Venusaur out with Hypnosis and hook him up to the portable GIZMO speaker, and his deafening roars would drown out any words he might be saying anyway.

But just as the thought surfaced, Venusaur's furious shriek downgraded to murderous growls, and Jason could make out an unbroken, violent string of hateful words emitting from the already-damaged speaker:

 _No no no no off, get it off, out OUT out NOW no no no no NO_

He'd genuinely thought it couldn't get worse. Somehow he'd managed to kid himself, and his own naivete slapped him in the face and drove a stake through his center. How—how could he have imagined this would be enlightening? Would help?

"He hates it," Jason said, flatly. He knew he was probably speaking far too softly to be heard over the din. "It's freaking him out. We need to get it off him."

"You should try to talk to him anyway," Tim said and though his voice had to be loud to carry to Jason, his tone somehow achieved a modicum of gentleness. "You'll regret not at least trying."

Jason both knew Tim was right and knew there was nothing to gain, but it didn't take long to pick between the two options. Jason drew nearer to the pen, horrified, heartbroken, transfixed and tormented. He might have been more a ghost than Gengar for all the notice Venusaur took of him.

"Hey," he said, too quietly. "Hey," he said again louder, his well of inspiration tapped dry.

That finally got Venusaur's attention. He'd been sliding his vines viciously across his head, trying to pry off the smooth, flat speaker disc adhered there, but now he lowered both vines and stared. His fuchsia eyes grew wide—then narrowed—and the low murmur of paranoia pitched a little louder.

 _No no no out out get out get me out now now now you you now—_

"I'm sorry," Jason said, not even remotely sure why he was bothering. "I know you don't know what's—" A vicious slew of Razor Leaves sprayed against the scuffed, abused enclosure. "—What's going on. I'm sorry." Venusaur roared and went right back to scraping his vines ineffectively across the speaker adhered to his head. "Shit," Jason spat. "We gotta take it off. He—" But before he could finish, Venusaur's vine snagged up one of the fallen Razor Leaves and, using that, he scraped the speaker off his temple so swiftly it flew across the pen like a thrown discus.

Tim's presence had drawn closer at some point. Jason could sense him standing directly behind him now.

"Just…" Jason said, flatly. "I'll… I'll text or call if… I think he needs to be asleep." A dim and distant part of him wished he hadn't sounded quite so hollow and defeated, but that tiny injury to his pride seemed so far away.

Gengar phased down from where it had been lurking near the enclosure, ready to intervene where necessary, and a moment later Tim and his Pokémon were both gone. Jason closed his eyes and slumped the moment they disappeared, grateful Tim had retreated without any pomp and circumstance. Yet Jason had only about a minute of relative silence before Venusaur let out a low, threatened growl. The sound was different enough from his earlier distracted snarls to draw Jason's attention, and when his eyes followed where Venusaur's were fixed, it was to see he wasn't as alone as he'd thought.

Several conflicting emotions warred within him at once. Surprise and uncertainty mingled with affront, even anger—how long had Lance been standing there? With no Pokémon to his name at the moment, he couldn't have just teleported in—which had to mean he'd been watching the whole time.

If it were anyone else, Jason would have snarled out a snide, _yes?_ As it was, he bit his tongue and watched as Lance crossed from the far side of the grassy field, making slow progress toward Jason and Venusaur. Though Lance had tried to hide it, it had become apparent as the days went by that his injuries extended to more than a busted arm. The Dragonmaster walked with a slight limping gait, but still held his head high and his back straight as he did so, barely allowing the strain in his knee to show.

For all the notice he paid him, Jason might as well have been part of the scenery. Lance's tawny eyes never left Venusaur, and the expression on his sharp, lined face was unreadable. Jason had seen facets of that look on Gav when he was pouring all of his attention into a gadget he was struggling to fix—he'd also seen it on Edith when she was hanging onto one of her struggling Spearows, quietly enduring its pecking and scratching so she could give it its medication.

Lance drew level with Jason then left him behind. Jason just watched, flummoxed, as Lance drew closer to the enclosure than anyone but he and Orion ever had. The older man stared in at Venusaur even while Jason's starter did his best to scare him away with more mutinous, low growling and leaves shot into the transparent wall. Not comfortable being left behind, Jason closed the gap between them and stood with Lance, side-by-side, both men looking in at Venusaur like he was an exhibit on display.

It took Lance a while to speak. "I wanted to see what I am to expect once my partners are recovered."

Jason frowned, and his eyes caught a shadow of movement—his own reflection. His field of vision shifted automatically to take in his own haggard, tense face, then shifted back to look through himself at Venusaur once more. "Who knows if your dragons are even gonna be put through this?"

"The chances are high enough that I'd rather be prepared than not," Lance explained calmly, still never looking Jason's way.

Jason snorted quietly, not bothering to censor himself. "Yeah, well. It's one hell of a ride." They fell silent again and he experienced a swell of unreality. He was standing in a greenhouse the size of a small shopping center with nothing but a transparent box keeping his murderous starter from ending his life, and he'd just sassed his boyhood hero.

Lance sure didn't seem to mind Jason's cheek. "I hear you and your friends revived an Aerodactyl," he noted.

"Yup," Jason affirmed, just as verbally uninspired as he'd been with Venusaur. For a moment Jason was tempted to share a detail—that Aerodactyl was essentially "his" Pokémon now. Would the Dragonmaster even find such a fact impressive? More importantly, did it matter? They lapsed into more silence, but Jason couldn't bring himself to feel bad for not upholding his end of the conversation. Lance didn't seem like a big talker to begin with, and that suited him just fine right now.

He had to admit, it was hard to see Lance and not think of Wyland. The association was one he didn't like, but couldn't help, and it served to sour his already dismal mood. Jason knew there was a phrase circling around in their group that painted him in an unfavorable, but unfortunately accurate light. He wasn't sure who'd started it—Amaris, maybe—but the longer Wyland's silence stretched, the more Jason felt like "pulling a Jason" and taking matters into his own hands.

It was as if Lance had read his mind. "Wyland still won't divulge what we need." It was in that liminal space between statement and question, and Jason arbitrarily decided to treat it like a question.

"Yeah. He hasn't. If we knew anything we'd, y'know. Tell you." He fully expected another long silence, part of their weird pattern now, but Lance was moving on.

"If he isn't talking voluntarily, he must be forced." Jason glanced sidelong at Lance, not moving his head at all, but the weight of his gaze must have tipped the Dragonmaster off. The older man's eyes slid sideways to lock Jason's gaze in place. "If I had my full strength back, or my partners, I would see to this."

"I hear you," Jason replied at once, not bothering with any flavor of façade. What good was it to feign discomfort or surprise when he felt the exact same way? "I've been at my breaking point since the night we smuggled him here."

"Yet you are not broken," Lance pointed out. This stopped Jason short—he wasn't sure how to read into that.

"… I'm not dumb, either," he finally said. "Everyone's telling us to stay away from his room. Try not to confuse him with too many approaches or—" He barely stopped himself from adding _some bullshit_ to the end of that. He finished instead with, "Yeah."

Lance hummed noncommittally, and for a second Jason thought that was all he'd do. But then he spoke again, and what he said sent a spike of something between fear and irritation through him.

"You don't strike me as the kind of person who would let the words of others stop you."

Jason's reply was knee-jerk. "No offense, but you don't really know me." He had been staring straight ahead, obeying the unspoken rule between them, but then he spotted Lance turning to face him from the corner of his eye. He automatically pivoted to meet him head-on. The older man's gaze was so hard and arresting Jason thought he knew how a mediocre, everyday Pokémon felt in the face of its Alpha.

"I know enough. I was there that night—I saw your battle against Terry. I heard what you and your fellow Initiates said when it was done. You were never meant to challenge us—they told you to stay back." Jason had fallen into something almost like a trance, Lance's words weaving a tapestry—or a spiderweb which had silenced and ensnared him. "You did not," Lance finished simply, and when he didn't look away from Jason he understood he was meant to explain himself.

"No, I didn't stay back. But I was stupid not to—and selfish. I get that now. Honestly, I got it then, too. I'm not proud. I… I do things like that. I'm trying…" He killed the words _to change._ "To… not do… that, anymore."

Lance didn't turn away, and somehow Jason knew that he meant he hadn't accepted what Jason had said. Believed him, maybe—but not accepted. "Sometimes a thing is the right thing to do. Sometimes a thing is stupid, and selfish." He paused, his expression unreadable, and Jason tried to tell himself it wasn't disappointed—then reminded himself it didn't matter even if it was. "Sometimes a thing can be all three of those at once." When Lance finally turned away Jason was unspeakably relieved.

Jason turned back to his starter too, and let his eyes slip shut. He didn't even care if Lance probably knew he was mentally checking out of the conversation for a moment—talking to the Dragonmaster was so stressful, and he was fried to begin with.

He didn't know how long he stood there, trying to release his tension, failing. It almost wasn't surprising when Lance spoke his final words.

"When you do it, don't go alone."

Jason's brow furrowed, but he didn't open his eyes as the sound of Lance turning away and slowly walking across the grass faded into the distance. Soon Venusaur's periodic, quieter snarls and agitated bursts of movement were the only sounds left.

The first part of what Lance had said to him wasn't a shocker at all. He figured Jason would go—that he'd throw his hands up and "pull a Jason" and tear answers out of Wyland any way he could. What pissed Jason off to no end was that he was probably right.

But the second part… that was what made no sense. Don't go alone? Why? And who the hell would even go with him? Everyone else here was keeping it together, able to effortlessly play the same old waiting game—cautious, ever cautious even as the stakes rose around them so high they blotted out the sun.

Even so—Jason found himself going through checklists in his mind. Gina—he'd want it to be Gina, but she wouldn't. She'd try to stop him. Orion—he wouldn't, either. What was more, Jason wasn't even sure he wanted his brother there at all. That was a can of worms he didn't even remotely want to open. Gav and Victoria—out. Beth and Kaylee would want to stay out of it to avoid going against their siblings. Even if, at one point, Kaylee might have been his best bet, that was no longer the case. She'd stopped being the "problem child" of their group a long time ago—that prestigious title belonged to Jason alone now. His thoughts shifted to Amaris and actually stopped there for a moment, calculating, but ultimately he dismissed him as a possibility too. He was different these days, but that didn't necessarily mean different enough to do this with him. The Nakawas seemed too level for an undertaking like this as well, and the last thing Jason wanted right now was logic and pragmatism to delay what had to be done.

Resigned to going it alone, Jason cast one final look over his shoulder at Venusaur, who seemed to have exhausted himself at last. He was slumped in a fitful, agitated rest in the corner of the pen farthest from where Jason stood, and just the sight of that burned away the last of his doubts. He crossed the grass silent and swift.

Now that he had a plan—or the seeds of what would someday be a plan—his heart was pounding audibly in his ears. He'd be screamed at for this, trusted even less than he already was—there were likely going to be consequences even steeper than that, outcomes Jason could only guess at. But whenever a falter found its way into his step, or a niggling worm of hesitation crawled through his stomach, he summoned up the image of his starter, wild and furious and suffering with no idea why this was happening. He doubled his pace through the house and up the stairs.

Nothing occurred to him as odd when he made it to the second-floor landing that contained Wyland's room. He was too busy glancing down the way to the other rooms along the railing, wary for open doors or prying eyes. It was only when he was directly outside Wyland's closed door that something struck him as wrong—and a second later a low voice murmured near his shoulder.

"It's Tim. Don't make any loud noises."

Jason couldn't fight off a twitch of surprise, but managed to keep it contained to that. Dread plunged into his stomach and rooted his feet to the spot. He'd been found out barely a minute and a half into his attempts to get results out of Wyland, and now that Tim had seen him about to try he'd have to work so much harder to get past him again in the future. Yet even as Jason's thoughts turned petulant and dark, he frowned at the space before Wyland's door—the space that was devoid of any Pokémon guards for the first time.

Jason's brow furrowed and Tim must have seen it from where he was still enveloped in Gengar's shadow field. "I'm… am I right in assuming you're here for the same reason I am?" he asked.

Feeling like he was walking headlong into a trap, Jason grappled with his answer, but in the end all he could do was nod once, curtly, before he made a more solid effort to unstick his throat and speak. "Depends. Are—are you here because you're sick and tired of giving him room and board while we get nothing at all from him in return?"

Tim's reply came after only a beat. "Yeah, I am." Without another word Jason was suddenly enveloped into Gengar's field of shadow. It was an entirely novel experience. He twitched in shock—or, he felt like he must have twitched, but the impulse to jerk and his own body's reaction seemed far away and abstract all of the sudden, like he was dreaming of a memory of movement.

He couldn't say exactly where his hands were, nor his feet. He had more of a solid idea of where his face was—he could see, and his eyes were in his face. But existing in the protective, invisible shroud of a Ghost Pokémon's ability was unlike anything he'd ever felt before, and Jason found himself taking a second to recalibrate. When Tim spoke up it startled him.

"I recalled mom's Magneton. It's why no one's guarding the door right now. But we probably don't have a ton of time before someone realizes he's gone. I was ready to do this alone and I'm still more than ready for that."

"No, I'm coming too," Jason answered at once, and his voice echoed in such a strange way he quickly followed it up with, "Can you actually hear me?"

In spite of the gravity of the situation, Jason thought he could hear a kind of smile in Tim's voice. "Yeah, I can hear you. Well, if you're in, we've got to do this fast."

"I'm good with fast," Jason replied at once.

"I'm gonna have Gengar drop the field now, okay?" Jason nodded, and felt like an idiot when Tim added, "If you nodded, I can't actually see that."

"Yeah," Jason said, a sheepish blip of amusement coming and going quick. Soon it was replaced entirely by the hard, sharp-edged feeling he got when his nerves were battling with his courage.

"Right on." Tim appeared beside him, Jason spun to make sure no one was watching, and a moment later they were inside Wyland's room, the door closing behind them with the softest of clicks.

Wyland was not asleep, even given the hour. He looked up at them from where he was perched on the edge of the bed, dark circles under his eyes, skin sallow, hair greasy. He had access to a shower but it sure as hell didn't look like he'd been using it. In spite of the exhaustion clear on the man's face, an awareness passed across his features that told Jason he knew what was up. This particular combination of people in the room with him was not only new, but couldn't bode well for him. He leapt to his feet, but before he could do anything more than that, darkness fell across the entire room.

Jason froze mid-leap. He'd been about to try to restrain Wyland, get a hand over his mouth, because it looked for all the world like the E4 member was about to shout for help. Now in the darkness of a targeted Night Shade attack, Jason couldn't hear anything—not even his own breathing, and rather than stumble his way into furniture he stayed poised and silent, tense, waiting. The second the lights came back he pivoted to get a better vantage point on the scene before him.

Kabutops had Wyland cornered, and the Ghost-trainer had been forced backward into a chair. Gengar had emerged from shadow, but was poised and ready—Jason could only assume to drop Night Shade on them again at the drop of a hat if Wyland made any move to shout. Tim stood a few paces back from Kabutops, but was staring long and hard at Wyland, and Jason took his cue and drew nearer, bringing up Tim's right side. It struck Jason that they were really missing the "good cop" here. There was no one to say "we don't mean any harm" or "just cooperate with us and this will all go smoothly."

"Please," Wyland said, and it sounded less like a plea and more like a hopeless complaint. "I know you have no reason to believe me. But this is for your own good."

For a long moment Tim didn't respond at all, and when he did speak Jason had no idea where he was going with this interrogation. "I've been thinking about something you said. 'The Champs are the ones who did it the humane way.'" He took a step closer to Wyland, who tore his eyes away from Kabutops and glanced instead up at Tim's face, his jaw set but his eyes bright with fear. "It seems to imply that you don't think I've got it in me to be 'inhumane,' huh?"

There was no cue, no warning. Kabutops knew his trainer so well that Tim's tone of voice must have been order enough. The fossil Pokémon lunged forward and buried both scythes into the wall on either side of Wyland's shoulders, effectively locking him into place on the chair. Wyland jerked and the chair scraped across the floor, but to his credit, he didn't shout.

He did, however, start to babble. "Tim. Please. You can't go there. You cannot come back from this if you go there."

Words tore themselves from Jason's throat so suddenly he had no idea he was about to speak. "You gave up your right to 'look out for us' the second you started working with Vaughn Nakawa," he snapped. "You can't just decide you're trying to 'help us' now."

"Don't," Wyland started, sucking in a breath as if to fortify himself but letting it out in a panicked rush. "Don't make me do this."

"I'm not going to make you do anything," Tim said, his voice still perfectly even, cold. "You're going to decide to do it all on your own."

Wyland switched tactics with the suddenness Jason had come to expect from throwaway villains in cheesy crime movies, but had never expected in real life. "You talk a big talk, but you won't follow through. I know you."

A scoff broke its way out of Jason's throat before he could stop it. "You seriously underestimate how little we have to lose. We tried to play nice. We played by the rules, exactly the way you and your friends never did. And you know what? It isn't working."

It was like someone else had hijacked his voice and was speaking these words. Jason wasn't sure how it was possible to feel so distant from the proceedings and so blindingly present and alive all at the same time, but he was managing it. He'd started to clutch at a Pokéball at his side at some point—he had no memory of reaching for it.

"I don't want to hurt you," Tim said, his voice low and level. "But—I will, if that's what it takes." Jason got the distinct feeling he'd changed the words partway through, from "we" to something more neutral that wouldn't assume Jason's participation. Yet Jason wouldn't have cared—he was in this, all the way, and the part of him that was scared of what that meant was too far away to bother him. "This is bigger than you, or me, or him. It's bigger than any of us, so believe me. I'll do what has to be done."

It was clear that these last threats were Plan A to get Wyland to talk, and Jason had no idea how far they'd go with Plan B. Before he could devote any more thought to it, a pang of intuition blitzed up his spine followed immediately by the locked door rattling behind him.

The room was plunged into darkness and silence. Jason slammed his teeth together in his head in frustration, frozen in place, and waited to see what Tim would do with this unwanted development. There was never any clue within Night Shade to indicate what was going on around him—not a breath of a whisper or the slightest inkling of movement. When the lights came back up Jason spun to get a bead on Tim—only to see the Champ frowning past Jason's head toward the doorway, alarm fading into a grim determination on his face.

Zahlia was standing in the doorway, her Gengar hovering upside-down above her, and Tim's Ghost surged back up from a shadow spot on the floor. It took Jason a faltering moment to realize that Zahlia's Gengar had surprised Tim's, just enough to undo the shade. Just as the Champ's Ghost lifted its arms and brought the edges of Jason's vision into a graying swirl, Tim murmured, "no," from behind him. At once the swirling eddies of darkness vanished, and a second later, so did Tim's Gengar.

"What are you doing?" Zahlia asked, eyes slipping from Tim to Jason. They locked there, the question for him even though it was clear Tim was the better prepared of the two of them.

"Getting results," Jason said, his voice rough and tense. "You can run and get Gav and the others, but you know as well as we do how ridiculous this all is. We aren't getting _anywhere_ with him."

Zahlia had let him get the entire angry spiel out—she was probably the only one capable of that feat. He stared at her and she stared back, her face severe yet unreadable at the same time. From behind him Jason heard Tim take a few cautious steps closer to them. Wyland, for his part, was absolutely silent.

"What exactly were you planning on doing?" Zahlia asked, her voice quiet and calm as it always was even as her stern eyes cut Jason to the quick.

"Anything I had to," Tim said, not sugar-coating or white-lying his way through any of this. "There isn't any other way to make him talk. The others—their methods aren't working. We can't just lift what we want from his head."

But the second Tim said it, Jason saw it. A flash crossed over Zahlia's eyes, subtle, but perhaps her face wasn't as unreadable as Jason had previously thought. She glanced past Jason, past Tim—and when she locked eyes with Wyland Jason knew he was reading the same realization off her face, as well.

"Oh, very funny," Wyland said, his voice harsh and hoarse. "I'd like to see you try. Ghost-trainer, right, girl? Well, let me liberate you of… of any delusions you're harboring here. It's not as easy as it sounds… using your Pokémon to get inside a person's mind. Especially not a mind that knows how to fight back. I'd say 'good luck,' but luck wouldn't even play a factor in this fool's errand. Just stop now."

Jason bit back a snarl, but far from looking irate at his baiting, Tim's face was taking on a new quality. His eyebrows slowly lifted, his expression transforming into one of tentative, curious wonder. He turned from the Elite Four member and regarded Zahlia instead. "Do you think you could?" he asked.

Zahlia hesitated, but Jason knew it wasn't modesty or low self-esteem making her pause. Her expression was shrewd and calculating as she looked Wyland up and down. "… I think so. He's not lying—he's likely had decades of practice blocking things like Dream Eater. But…" She trailed off, and Jason knew what the rest of her unspoken sentence was. Wyland was expecting them to knock him out with Hypnosis, then hit him with DE. The odds that he'd expect possession and a direct feed of images straight from his brain to Zahlia's… suffice to say, they were low odds.

Zahlia had yet to successfully infiltrate a mind with any kind of subtlety, but subtlety wasn't exactly what they were going for here tonight. Without a word Tim lifted his hand and his Gengar dropped a field of darkness around Wyland's corner of the room alone so the trio in the room could talk.

"Do you think you could do it?" Tim asked, drawing level with Jason as Zahlia took a step forward to confer with them in a tighter circle.

"I think… I could get impressions, at least. Images. If I surprise him, before he has a chance to figure out how to fight it. I'm sure he'd find a way around it if I go too slow." She glanced past them at the dark corner of the room. "Keep him shrouded like that until the last moment. I'll have Gengar enter the second the shade is lifted."

Jason automatically opened his mouth to speak but found he had nothing to offer. He'd fully expected Zahlia to turn them in, summon Gav and Victoria from their room in the dead of night and put an end to this before it had even begun. A deep appreciation warred with something not exactly like shame and Jason couldn't figure out which way his internal river ran.

"I only wish…" Zahlia began, furrowing her brow lightly. "I won't be able to provide any insight in real-time. It'll just be in my head. I don't think I'll have the presence of mind to report what I'm seeing to you verbally as I go. But I'll try."

"It's the best we can do," Tim assured her. "Thank you." It was hard to believe this man had been moments away from terrorizing their captive—maybe even hurting him. Tim was able to turn ruthless interrogator on and off as easily as level-headed leader—and Jason didn't know whether to admire that or fear it.

Zahlia nodded and turned to confer with Gengar. Jason took that opportunity to draw nearer to Wyland's circle of darkness, poising himself to the far left, and Tim wordlessly took up mantle far right. When Zahlia was done she slid to the middle, and Gengar, employing a trick he'd learned from Tim's Ghost, slipped down into her shadow and disappeared.

"He's ready," she said. "On three."

Tim counted them down, and on three the darkness lifted, Wyland's chair screeched backward with his shocked twitch—and Gengar surged forward, straight through Zahlia, and disappeared, not into Wyland's shadow—but into the man himself. Wyland's chair jerked again, his whole body twisted violently to the side—and then, all at once, he went still.

Yet "still" wasn't the right word for it. Wyland wasn't thrashing about, but he was trembling, his body rigid and taut, eyes staring and unseeing. Jason couldn't see Zahlia's face, but he knew somehow she was transfixed too, poised as if on the starting line of a race. Jason realized he was holding his breath.

Seconds crawled by. Wyland twitched, sometimes more violently, sometimes more subdued. Nothing else happened, no one said a thing—and finally Jason unstuck his throat so he could clear it.

"Z?" he asked, as quiet and unobtrusive as he could while still hoping to snag her attention.

"Ah—" Zahlia started, which could have been the start of "I" or a completely random sound. She shifted a little, trying to split her attention, and Jason immediately regretted speaking up. If it was a choice between getting better information out of Wyland or hearing what she was saying right now, he could wait a damned minute.

He did shift over so he could at least watch her face, though. Her brow was furrowed like she was focusing hard in a lecture or trying to hear some far-off sound. Her eyes shifted left and right, following things he couldn't see, and his frustration was mirrored a second later on her face. "It's," was all she got out—

And then shifting shapes emerged from empty air all around them.

Jason's jaw dropped. The sudden, jutting blocks of color around them couldn't be mistaken for Night Shade acting up. Night Shade didn't move like this, in lurching sweeps and swirling currents, like paint through water. Before Jason's eyes swatches of dark blue, brighter teal and pale turquoise branched out, undecided—trying, he thought, to form an image. Zahlia twitched, alerted to the sudden silence, or perhaps the movement of colors in the corner of her eye.

"No," Tim said. "Keep doing what you're doing." Zahlia faced front again, drawing closer to Wyland and putting the colors farther behind her.

"What the hell is going on?" Jason breathed, half his question directed at Tim and half of it rhetorical. He never took his eyes off the colors moving before him, so he didn't even have an idea if Tim answered with some sort of gesture.

The outer ring of turquoise decided to flatten and broaden, and as if following its lead, the teal sank inside it. The dark blue dotted itself in the middle. It was a lopsided bullseye—and then all at once the image lengthened and grew depth, stretching out in three dimensions where before it had been flat. Tim pulled in a breath beside Jason and Jason had to fight back a quiet curse of awe. They couldn't distract Zahlia.

Jason thought he understood what the image was going for—it was pulling back, farther and farther, so the brighter outside appeared to be encompassing the darker inside. It gave the impression of a tunnel… a dark place of some sort. He waited for more, mad with impatience and wishing there was a way to write this all down with full detail, for he knew he'd never remember the way the "wall" textured itself just so, there…

He could have kicked himself in the ass. A second later Jason's Dex was out, and after fumbling with it with clumsy fingers for a second, he managed to paw his way to a new video recording. Tim, seeing what he was up to, quickly snagged his own phone and did the same. Without a word they moved off to either side of Zahlia, took a few steps back, and started recording the image from two different angles.

It wasn't a moment too soon. The first image shuddered, tilted, and shattered in slow motion. Fragments of color broke apart and drifted around, pointless and lost, and as Jason watched over the top of his Dex the darker blue sank to the bottom and evened out only to shiver there, immaterial and agitated. The paler blues and teals stroked themselves up toward the ceiling in broad stripes, exactly as if painted there by a huge brush, and as they did the dark blue crawled up the marks in quick, snappy rushes, carving out hard, organic edges. Rocks? Jason got the distinct impression he was looking at massive, towering cliff faces of blue rock… but why would the rock be blue? Theories tumbled in his head, but before he could give credence to any of them the image snapped away again as if a giant hand had swiped a large circle right in the middle of the cliffs.

The dark blue was almost gone now, drifting down to just touches, always low, and as Jason watched a new color arched its way across the scene—white. Powdery blue chased it, undercutting the bellies of each half-circle sweep. When Jason peered through the viewfinder of his Dex, finally, it was to see he was shooting the footage almost too low. He jerked the camera up to better capture it, but when the lens fuzzed and refocused the colors looked hopelessly washed out and fake. Nothing could live up to the vibrancy Jason was seeing with his own eyes.

At long last a shape appeared that was a little more solid, something he felt he could sink his teeth into. Brighter blue spiked down into a sharp, deadly point, and like a visual piano run several others followed in steadily decreasing size. The first kept growing even while the others formed, the smallest barely bigger than Jason's thumbnail and the first, monstrous one finally melding straight to the "ground" of the image. In a rush, Jason thought he knew what he was looking at.

The scene warbled, shuddered, and when Zahlia twitched suddenly Jason knew their time was almost up. She'd been so still this whole time he'd honestly almost forgotten she was the one allowing them to see all this, and he held his breath, half-mad with helplessness. There was nothing he could do to help her keep her focus—they were already remaining as still and silent as possible.

The last several images they caught came coupled with wild, erratic jerking from Wyland, as if the pictures were being forcibly ripped from his head. The scenes flashed by so fast it was almost too much for him to comprehend, and in a rush he was weak-in-the-knees grateful they had two phones recording this information. Even as Jason thrilled at each sight another part of him balked and blanched—what was happening to this man in front of him? Why was no one—not even him—trying to stop it?

When the final ribbon of color was tugged free from wherever it had originated, Wyland slumped backward in the chair, twitching spastically, and Zahlia took several stumbling steps back. Jason almost dropped his Dex in his haste to stabilize her, and Tim surged forward to check on Wyland.

"Are you okay?" Jason asked Zahlia quickly, frowning down at her as she blinked in an aggressive, painful way. She looked like she'd been sleeping for years and barely recalled how to use her eyes.

"Fine," she said, but she didn't sound fine. "Did you—what did you?" she asked, gesturing behind her. A second later a haze of some kind seemed to lift and she corrected herself, pointing instead forward, at the swathe of empty air that had moments ago contained those acid-bright images.

"We saw blues and—caves and things," Jason said, his descriptions failing him horribly. "I don't know if it's exactly what you saw but Tim and I recorded it. We can look it over, we can—"

Jason stopped speaking like someone had lopped off his tongue with an axe. The enormity of it hit him square, caving the air from his chest in a slow, steady stream. They had to bring this to the others—they had to call forth yet another midnight emergency meeting, what felt like the fiftieth this month. They had to tell what they'd done. Dread, shame, prickly defensiveness and a hollowed-out buzz filled him, and Jason had no idea how he could hold it all inside him concurrently.

Tim peered over at them from where Wyland was twisted along the back of the chair, facing away from Tim and leaning his forehead against the wall. "He's going to be okay far as I can tell," Tim said, his tone completely lost on Jason. "He's answering me, anyway. We have to let him rest."

"Okay," Jason said, and when his knuckles creaked in protest he realized he was gripping his Dex too tightly. He'd accidentally activated something on his screen—it was asking him if he was sure he wanted to delete his video. He clicked "no" at once, saved it quickly, and stared at his device until the power-saver mode flicked on and he was confronted with his own pale, drawn face.

Tim had said Wyland was fine. Jason hadn't acted alone—and they had gotten what they wanted in the end. Yet for the first time in his life, even with miles of bad choices behind him, Jason couldn't stomach the sight of his own reflection.


	13. In The Eye :Gina:

Pokémon Azure

Chapter 13: In The Eye

(Gina Ikeda)

The loud rapping of knuckles on her door woke Gina from the deepest part of sleep. A sluggish surge of unpleasant adrenaline bolted through her chest and she sat up in a rush, blinking in the dark. She rolled the wrong way to get out of bed, and by the time she'd oriented herself to chase after the glowing inch of light under her doorway she could hear feet pounding away down the hall. When she opened her bedroom door no one was outside.

Gina poked her head out and glanced right (to a dead end) then caught movement to her left. Kaylee, her face pinched in a frown of aggressive exhaustion, turned her way. "Meeting," she reported, balling her fists and thundering on Amaris' door next. At the blanch Gina gave her she quickly clarified. "No one's dead or dying."

Gina stepped all the way out into the hall, glanced hastily down at her oversized sleep shirt and gray sweatpants, and deemed them passably appropriate. When she shut the door behind her she nearly locked herself out. She was batting a thousand.

All along the second floor landing faces were peering out of doors, feet were padding downstairs, and quiet, then louder questions were issued. She heard a few completely useless keywords— _meeting, don't know, living room_ —and then two that flipped her stomach. _Jason—Wyland_.

Her first irrational thoughts were, _I should have known,_ and _I should have done something._ It was jumping the gun, as she had no idea what had even happened yet, and what was more—she wasn't Jason's keeper, and no one expected her to be. It wasn't like she had any real power over him, anyway. All of this jumbled up in her previously fuzzy brain as she darted down to the living room with the others.

Victoria and Gav, miraculously, were not yet in attendance, so Kaylee took point in their absence. "Gina, can you conference call Nick and Casey on your Dex? No, wait. Text first and ask them if they're in a position where they can talk. Especially Nick. He might be around people."

"Hope not, this late," Gina murmured, but branched off for some quiet space to do as she was asked. While she shot off the texts, she took a surreptitious second to study Kaylee's face. She'd taken the younger Harrison's pinched, furrowed expression for woken-at-midnight fatigue, but it seemed like it went a little deeper than that.

She figured out why a second later. Blake swung his arm around the banister at the bottom of the stairs, pivoting his momentum to join them, and jerked his free thumb over his shoulder. "Tim says Wyland's fine. Whatever they did isn't gonna have lasting… whatever." He gestured vaguely. "He's leaving one of his Pokémon in the room and it'll summon one of us if Wyland suddenly… isn't… fine anymore or something." He scrubbed his hand over his face, just another victim of exhaustion, and Gina tried not to look at Kaylee. _What "they" did._ Was Tim involved somehow?

Her confusion was only compounded when Kaylee said, "And Zahlia's okay?"

Blake fixed his tired dark eyes on her. "Far as I can tell. Three of 'em'll be down soon. Getting a mini-grilling from Gav and Vic, I expect."

So that was where their unofficial leaders were. Of course they hadn't been looped in last. But Gina's head swam. Zahlia was a part of this—whatever this was, as well? Resolving not to tie herself up in question marks any longer, Gina contemplated taking a seat but knew she'd not be able to find a comfortable position right now.

Amaris and Orion appeared and Gina had both Casey and Nick on speaker phone on her Dex before the remaining five they were waiting for came downstairs. Jason, his expression somehow both wary and stony, was hovering near Zahlia as if afraid she might swoon, Gav and Victoria brought up the rear, their expressions giving nothing away, and Tim led the group into the living room, head held high but a faint grimness in the set of his mouth.

Thankfully, their group had been through enough inefficient meeting kerfuffle to understand that the best thing to do was let the ones with the most information speak. Tim started them off.

"We have intel from Wyland. It's just images… we recorded them as we saw them. Zahlia's Gengar pulled the images from him using possession techniques and somehow some of what Zahlia was seeing through his eyes was able to get projected into the real world. I've got one angle on my phone and Jason has the other angle on his Dex."

Jason spoke up next. "It's blues and whites. Kind of abstract. But it looks like a place. There are some natural landmarks. Gotta be where Lance's dragons are, and where we have to go."

Zahlia didn't add to the discussion, looking just a little green in the gills, and Gina knew it was a mark of how ill she was feeling that, when Beth pulled her up a chair, the eldest Nakawa sat in it gratefully instead of trying to mask her uneasiness on her feet.

It seemed like a natural break in the first rounds of explanations, so Gav took the first stab at clarification. "So you three snuck into Wyland's room in the dead of night to take questioning him into your own hands. Because the way we were doing it was clearly not good enough."

Gina grimaced and wasn't able to hide it. There was a slight shifting from her speakerphone and she jumped a little, having forgotten Nick and Casey were silently listening in from their conference call. She held the device aloft a little better on her palm and looked anywhere but at Gav. It wasn't like him to be this cutting and blunt, and was therefore a mark of how serious this was.

Jason managed to get out, "Tim and I were in there first. Zahlia must've heard sounds and came in to investigate. Wasn't her idea in the first place."

"But you stayed and—and what?" Kaylee asked, turning her tense, unhappy expression to Zahlia now. "Tested out your possession—what sounds like a stronger version of it by a hell of a lot—on this guy against his will?"

Zahlia made a valiant effort to sit up straight and tune in to the talk better. "I did," she said, voice level. She cast Jason a small, complicated sidelong glance. "I appreciate Jason trying to acquit me of some responsibility here, but I made a choice to take that risk tonight, and I recognize that it was in direct violation of our plan."

"A plan that wasn't getting us anywhere," Amaris said, slowly, and there was that little ripple of, _oh yeah, he's here,_ that still sometimes traveled through the group when he spoke up. He ignored it, as he always did. "Not to offend, Gav, Victoria. I realize you were trying to maintain our group's… 'code of ethics.' But I'm afraid that flew the coop long ago."

Jason stared at Amaris with an expression too complex for Gina to pick apart, but before anyone physically present could respond to Amaris' statement, Nick's slightly distant voice sounded from her Dex. While he spoke she jammed the volume up to max with her thumb. "Tim, not for nothing… but what exactly was your plan for getting that information out of Wyland if Zahlia hadn't happened along?"

Tim hesitated for just a second, but didn't blanch away or avert his eyes when he said, "I was willing to do what had to be done."

"Yeah, okay, but what does that mean?" Victoria asked, her tone not quite as unassuming as Nick's had been.

" _We_ threatened him," Jason said, hollowly. He cast Tim a small sidelong glance coupled with an equally tiny narrowing of his eyes. "It…" He stopped, pinched the bridge of his nose, and resumed with his eyes squeezed shut as if to endure a headache. "The other ways weren't… working."

"So clearly the fallback was torture," Blake said, arms crossed and eyes heavily lidded with a combination of sleepiness and sarcasm. "Super. But, hey, lucky Zahlia came along with a less… messy solution." Jason grimaced at Blake's word choice but didn't look up at him, not in the mood to challenge or bite back. And apparently not going to deny that there was a kernel of truth to what Blake had said. Gina's world tilted a little.

"How is that automatically worlds better?" Victoria cut in. "Zahlia's techniques are still very much in the works. You say Wyland 'seems' fine. Your reasoning was that he's dealt heavily with Ghosts and their techniques before. Forgive me for saying that justification is watery at best."

Casey's voice sounded out from Gina's dex. "Nick and I can arrange to come down tomorrow. Or—" he paused, and Nick took over.

"Yeah, I can make it," he said. "Though I don't know that I'd call myself an expert on this. Trentolds is gonna know more. I'll phone him after this, if that's alright." There were soft murmurs of assent.

"That's great," Gav said, his voice still stony and flat. He didn't sound actually relieved at all, and Gina knew there was a _but_ coming. "But even if we find out there's nothing lasting wrong with his mind after whatever happened, that in no way makes this okay."

Jason frowned up at Gav, opened his mouth and, with visible effort, shut it. Following this, Orion spoke up for the first time.

"You're allowed to speak, you know. If you've got something to say, say it." The words themselves were almost supportive, but Orion's tone was a challenge, and Gina could almost see the electric crackle that passed between the Fremont brothers.

It wasn't Jason who spoke, though. "I stand by what I did." Gina swiveled to lock her sights on Tim, who was staring Orion down in a way that made her skin prickle. It was the kind of steady, unbroken eye contact Orion insisted didn't bother him, and which they all avoided anyway since they knew he was lying. "Zahlia's solution was non-violent. It _was_ worlds better than what I had planned. But even if she hadn't come along—I was fully prepared to do what needed to be done."

"We _both_ were," Jason added, his tone getting more and more nettled as Tim continued to exclude him from his wording.

Victoria breezed past this. "Wonderful for you. My question is: why the hell wouldn't you communicate this idea that Zahlia could get the information out with her Pokémon once you realized it was viable?"

"It was—we didn't _premeditate_ this, it was a spur-of-the-moment—" Jason began.

"I don't care," Gav cut him off. It was one of the first times, if not the only time Gina could remember him actually interrupting someone. "Those kinds of decisions are what cause us the worst problems. You go in there, riding high on this plan you've made, and you discover there's a complicated but potentially effective tool to get the information a different way. You really don't think we'd have considered that if you'd told us? You thought we'd have flat-out rejected any other avenue just to cling to the original plan?"

 _Yes,_ Gina thought, her heart sinking. It was exactly what Jason had thought, and probably even Tim. Even she would have had to shelve her emotions and think long and hard to remember that Gav and Victoria, cautious though they were, were also creatures of logic and efficiency, and were more open to new ideas than they sometimes seemed. For Tim and Jason, already so quick to anger, that stop-and-think moment hadn't even been a blip on the radar.

Tim's expression flickered for a second, anger peering through the cracks before he closed the shutters once more. Yet there was a tremor of frustration in his voice as he spoke. "I thought you'd understand. You're a bigger picture person, aren't you? I always felt you were. This is _one man._ One very clearly _not innocent_ man, and this _one man_ is what was in our way. While he sits here, clammed up and resisting, getting free meals and free room and board, Pokémon could be suffering. People could be dying. How do you not get that?"

Before Gina's eyes one of the most level members of their group transformed. Gav stood taller, a sudden reminder of how broad in the shoulder he was and how intimidating he could be if he tried. He somehow gave the impression of stepping forward into Tim's space but never moved an inch. "We come from the same pain, Broome. That doesn't mean I care less. That doesn't mean I automatically take your side or make all the same choices you make. Watch what you say."

Kaylee had been eerily silent, her lack of contribution conspicuous, but she intervened now. "Okay, awesome, you guys have a lot in common but don't agree on methods. Focus it in here, people. The problem is why the hell they didn't tell us." She did her best to sound like Gav, expressing her thoughts with a smooth, even tone, but Kaylee was not her brother. Emphasis leaked into her last several words, and the fact that she refused to look at Tim at all was almost worse than if she'd rushed him and shoved him.

"Perhaps we should focus on what was found," Amaris said, interjecting with a remarkable amount of tact and delicacy for someone who normally didn't dole that out on his best days. Doubly impressive was the fact that he hadn't had a "best day" in months. "Two recordings?"

A few of their more keyed-up members sucked in breaths to argue, but Blake got to speak first. "I'm also curious how the hell Gengar did that, and if there's a way to perfect that technique without making Zahlia look like she's gonna puke."

Before anyone else could protest the attempted change in subject, Lance's low tenor sounded from directly behind Gina and nearly startled her into dropping Nick and Casey.

"Thank you for thinking to invite me to this meeting," Lance said, though there wasn't a lot of venom in the simple jab. "Luckily I was out and about and came across it myself. I gather you have new information very pertinent to my interests." The way he directed his question solely at Jason wasn't lost on Gina.

Jason visibly squirmed, and at first Gina thought it was because he was uncomfortable around the Dragonmaster, but then he blurted out, "Maybe you can tell us where the place is—the place on our footage. You have the best shot of recognizing it." Gina got it, then. Jason wanted badly to move on from the chiding and scolding part and get into the meat and bones—the action points of what they'd do next now that they had this information.

"We aren't dropping this," Victoria stated, a tone of disbelief creeping into her voice.

"Yeah, we aren't," Kaylee said, and a few eyebrows shot up among their group. Kaylee and Jason normally always led the way into the future actions portion of their proceedings, craving momentum and chafing against obsessing over past events. But Gina couldn't blame her at all when Kaylee finally cast a tiny, hurt glance at Tim that the Champ missed—he was watching Lance's face with a calculating, analytical look.

"It was stupid," Orion cut in. "And reckless and no, we shouldn't drop it forever. But I vote we drop it for now if we have something we can use."

"Seconded," came Casey's voice from the Dex, followed by an, _mm-hmm_ from Nick. There were several nods, and in the end only Gav, Kaylee and Victoria were left, pausing and reluctant, but ultimately unable to keep the group from moving on. Gav's anger seemed to have burned hot and petered out fast, and only a residual storminess was palpable in his expression now.

"Let's move this into the conference room," Tim suggested, who on the other hand still clipped off each word in an abrupt, harsh way. He refused to look at Gav and Victoria, instead addressing a place where no one stood. "We can hook our devices up and project the videos larger." Gina stood, feeling a little numb and adrift, and resolved to actually speak at some point—she'd not uttered a sound so far.

Tim wound up sending his file to Jason so they could both be played off his Dex back to back. Uncomfortable shuffling to find seats took a lot longer in this weird context—angry, sullen movie night—but soon the shaky images were playing. Gina, who had the newest model of Dex among them, was able to call up a video chat mode so Nick and Casey could watch too. The quality had to be awful for them but they'd get a copy of the file soon enough.

When both sets of footage were done playing Lance wasted no time. "It looks like the Seafoam Islands. I'll need to watch again a few times to be sure, but there's a particular cliff face that reminds me of that second image. The sheer drop was caused by ice calving." Gina didn't know what that meant but could guess, and quiet murmurs broke out in the room.

Gav managed to bring them back together. "Assuming this is true, and that's where we need to go… next is figuring out how we're going to do this."

Jason spoke up quickly, but lost momentum half a sentence in, like he wasn't sure he was allowed to contribute right now. "I don't see what there is to—" He paused, but ultimately finished. "To decide. Second we can confirm it, what's to really stop us from going?"

"That's just like you to say," Amaris remarked, letting out the words on a sigh. It seemed their brief truce was over. "Not that I'm surprised." Jason looked, for a second, like he wanted to say something to that, but just tightened his jaw for a moment before looking away.

Tim's expression was still stony, but his tone was calmer when he spoke. "Much as I hate to admit it, Wyland likely had a good point. He wouldn't have been so resistant about telling us this location unless it was really bad. This is going to be harder than anything you or I've faced before."

"So," Victoria said, her acid from earlier gone, replaced by an all-business efficiency. "Levelling? Should it be assumed we aren't ready yet?" Several of their number visibly grimaced at the idea of postponing this trip, and Victoria sighed. "No, didn't think so. But we all at least know the ballpark of our fighters' levels?"

Jason frowned at that and fixed his gaze to the ground, puzzled. "Yeah, except for Voltorb. I looked at it through my Dex once but since I didn't use a ball, it wasn't ever officially logged into my Dex as a catch. Gotta look and see what the Dex estimates it at now."

Lance, who had been lost in thought, staring at the frozen image of the icy cliffs on the projector screen, glanced instead to Jason. Slight interest crossed his face for a second before it melted back into his mask of gruff stoicism. "You didn't use a Silph ball on the Voltorb?"

"No," Jason said. "We'd already sworn them off by that point."

Lance huffed through his nose but it didn't seem derisive. It was almost a laugh. "Good. No bond created through the use of those hellish contraptions is genuine."

Gina's jaw dropped in spite of herself, and she wasn't the only one. She hadn't wanted her first words of the meeting to be a direct challenge to the Dragonmaster, but she couldn't help herself. "Hang on. You're saying that the rest of our team members—the relationships we have with them—that those are all fake to you?" She expected him to clarify—that sure, maybe they'd started less than ideal, but that he hadn't meant to imply they'd stayed illegitimate.

Instead he just said, "Yes." A second later he'd turned and walked away. No one spoke up to stop him, and when he shut the door behind him he left a peevish silence in his wake.

"Wow," Kaylee said, a scowl darkening her features. "Well, whatever. He can think that all he wants."

Jason let out a sigh and raked a hand through his hair. "He's… not wrong. It—"

But Kaylee's eyebrows shot up and she cut him off. "Jason, what? No way. You can't really believe that."

"I'm not saying that what we have with our teams isn't real _now,_ " Jason insisted, delivering the reasoning Gina had been hoping to hear from Lance. "But we can't pretend that the way we got our teams was the right way."

"He sure as hell made it sound a lot more black and white than that," Beth pointed out, a slightly miffed tone to her voice that was telling in and of itself. Jason let out a little _agh_ of frustration.

"Just, he knows what he's talking about. I'm with him on this one."

"He's not your father."

The hush that fell over the room was absolute. Gina knew the voice hadn't belonged to Amaris, but she still looked his way anyway—only for her eyes to confirm that Amaris was looking at the real source of the comment as well. Gina slowly shifted her stunned gaze over to Blake. He lifted his eyebrows.

"What?" he asked Jason's slowly growing look of disbelief. "It's pretty obvious you idolize him and you're trying to please him. Just be aware of why you're doing that."

"Of—" Jason began, rising to his feet. A quick flash of anger blasted through the surprise on his face, but then it morphed into a look absolutely rife with attempted repression. It seemed to take all of Jason's willpower to merely settle for gritting out, "I don't remember signing up for your psychoanalysis, thanks."

"I charge for the full hour even if you leave early," Blake joked in a way that was clearly not a joke. "But I think we'd all prefer it if you stuck around for the rest of the meeting instead." The jab against Jason's unfortunate habit of storming off when angry wasn't lost on her, and she sucked in a quiet breath and winced.

"Nick and Casey are going to bring Trentolds by, right?" Zahlia asked suddenly, her voice haggard and worn out. "We decided that? Want to see if he can give me some insight into Gengar's ability after he makes sure Wyland's alright." She paused, then added, "Sorry if I'm being a little abrupt. Headache. I'd like to wrap up if we can."

"Sure are," Casey said from Gina's Dex, the worry evident in his distant voice.

"I'm messaging him now," Nick added. There was the soft background clacking of computer keys.

"And I think turning in for the night is a brilliant plan," Victoria said, weariness evident in her tone too. "We'll start stocking up on travel supplies just like we did for VR. We'll need even more, just to be safe."

"I don't know if he thinks he's coming with us, but Lance won't be able to tag along," Gav added. "He's still recovering from his injury and he's got no Pokémon."

"I'll tell him if it comes to that," Tim promised. "We should see if we can get clearer pictures of those images blown up and printed out. Though the video quality to begin with isn't that great…"

"I could…" Orion seemed to have started speaking before he had thought better of it, because he cut himself off partway. After a short series of conflicting expressions, he twisted his mouth into a small grimace and finished, mumbling. "Try to paint them."

"Yes," Gina said at once. "Do that." It honestly felt like not a single positive thing had made it out of this meeting—Jason even now was making his way to the door, as the group was rising to disperse. Seeing Orion's art again might very well be the only good take away from all of this. Her eyes tracked after Jason for a moment before he closed the door on her line of sight.

Sleep had been number one with a star on her list of things to do after this exhausting meeting, but Gina found herself lingering even as the others groaned and shuffled their ways away. Kaylee still looked glum and grim, but slipped away so quickly Gina knew she would be "sleeping" in her room with the door locked in a matter of seconds. Blake, however, was still seated, one leg crossed over his other, staring at the now-blank projector screen. Gina got a curious, tired eyebrow lift from Victoria, who was leaving with Gav, but Gina gave her a thumbs up to show she was staying behind intentionally and was fine. When the rest of the room had emptied she took a seat next to Blake.

For a moment, they just shared the silence together. Then Gina cleared her throat.

"So… what's up with you and Jason? You've butted heads before but that seemed kind of personal."

Blake shrugged, and to his credit didn't try to dodge out of the conversation at all. "He's just… not very self-aware. Sometimes he needs people to point things out to him, even if it seems obvious."

Gina opened her mouth to question this, but stopped. Blake wasn't looking her way, but some quiet sound or motion out of the corner of his eye must have alerted him.

"Go ahead," he said.

"Just…" she began. "Is that really all there is to it?" She'd wanted to reword that somehow, to make it seem less like an accusation, or like she didn't take what he told her at face value.

Blake sighed, but didn't seem offended. He shifted back a little in his seat and tilted his head back onto the headrest, staring up at the dark, vaulted ceiling. "Look… Jason's been through some shit. I get it. We all do." Gina snuck a peek at Blake from the corner of her eye, and when he didn't move, she turned fully to face him better. "His life has been pretty rocky, 'specially these past several years. But I think he gets caught up in that, and he forgets about the things he _does_ have." Blake rocked his head to the right to stare blankly at Gina, and when she returned a blank stare, not comprehending his meaning, he sat up straighter.

"What I mean is: how many of us here even _have_ dads? Dads who are around and accessible, and aren't bat-shit crazy evil?" Gina frowned, ready to tally up the numbers, but Blake had it ready. "Me, Jason and Orion." Gina's frown deepened—that couldn't be all. But Blake turned a palm up to her as if waiting for more examples. She opened her mouth a few times, ready to say, _you forgot about…_ but eventually it occurred to her that he really hadn't.

"Right," Blake said simply, settling back into his seat to get comfortable again. "Gav's, Kaylee's, Tim's and Amaris' dads—or, father-figures, anyway, are dead. Gina, pretty sure you never had a father-figure in your life, right? Just been you and your mom?" Gina nodded, and he went on. "Victoria and Beth's dad is locked up. Zahlia's is literally the reason we're always running for our lives, evil incarnate, all that good stuff. So, yeah, Fremont isn't perfect… far goddamn cry from it… but he's actually here, and he's trying. And Jason's doing his best to avoid the guy even though it's obvious he's desperate for some kind of relationship with him." Gina tried to keep the surprise off her face, but Blake was wrapping up and didn't seem to notice. "So what does he do? Latch onto Lance in some weird mix of hero-worship and transference." He shrugged again, a gesture that tried to be dismissive but just looked like a line of blocking in a play. "I just don't think a real friend sits by quietly and watches something stupid like that. He can hate me if he wants, but I'm not interested in being liked. Just calling it like I see it."

Gina would have greatly preferred taking some time to comprehend and digest all Blake had said, but felt the need to reply quickly lest he start to feel weird that he'd just unloaded so much. "You really do pay way closer attention than a lot of the rest of us do," she said quietly, still mulling over one thing he'd said in her mind— _it's painfully obvious he's desperate for some kind of relationship with him._

Blake made a sound that wasn't quite a dry laugh. "I'm good at that bit. The being tactful and wording things in a nice way bit? Not so much."

Gina cast him a look and when he actually met her eyes she gave him a smile and shook her head. "You don't have to be good at that bit. Just be good at being you. We need it."

Now Blake flat-out snorted at her and Gina's smile changed into a grin. "See? That's the 'good at being nice' bit, right there." But he returned her smile with a half-hearted smirk of his own. "Thanks. But if Jason smothers me in my sleep I'm counting on you to testify that dude had mad motive."

Gina wrinkled her nose and snorted painfully through a laugh, shaking her head. "Uh huh. I'll avenge you."

"Better," he said, taking that cue for the end of the conversation and standing up. "Well… at any rate. He's gonna have a lot of fallout to deal with. I probably shoulda saved the 'psychoanalysis' as he put it for a different time. Oh well. Live and learn, or if you're me, live, learn, promptly forget and repeat the same mistakes."

"Amen," Gina grumbled, wishing those words didn't ring quite so true. "Later, Blake."

When she was alone in the audio-visual room in the dark, Gina let herself have a moment. She closed her eyes, then immediately opened them—that didn't seem like a good idea. She could picture herself clearly nodding off in here and waking up past lunchtime with a wicked crick in her neck.

Blake's words still bothered her, needling in her brain like a splinter not quite at the stage yet where she could just yank it out and be done with it. _Painfully obvious._ Was it? If it was, what had stopped her from noticing it? Jason's resentment for and complete lack of interest in his father had sure seemed genuine to her—she'd taken it all for face value. Yet as soon as Blake had said it, a light had shone into a dark corner she'd never noticed before, and a voice inside her had breathed out an _ah, of course._ Painfully obvious? Maybe so. And the fact that it was just made her feel worse.

She wondered what else was "painfully obvious" to Blake, but knew she wouldn't have a chance to ask him. He and Beth were slotted to head out to Cerulean to try to recruit Lily tomorrow, and Victoria and Amaris were heading to Celadon the day after that. The timing should still work out if the recruitments didn't take long. Lance would likely take part of the day tomorrow to confirm that the images were of the Seafoam Islands, Orion would do his paintings, and they'd start prepping their go-bags full of Potions, Antidotes, jerky and the like.

Gina, in flawless Bad Friend form, had been avoiding Jason like mad for several reasons. They'd never talked about the strange moment they'd shared in the Power Plant, and now he was more preoccupied than ever with Venusaur. But he was isolating himself, which was achingly apparent now, and Gina had to put her own discomfort and reluctance behind her.

He probably wasn't in bed yet. She suspected Tim, Zahlia and Jason had probably had a smaller talk with Gav and Victoria after the group broke, and if she knew anything at all about her best friend anymore, he'd want to train his guilt, confusion and frustration away.

It didn't take her long to hear him. She'd only cleared one corner of the ground floor when a distant screech followed by a shout and a thud sent the hairs on her upper arms standing up on end and a chill through her blood. Gina abandoned the room she'd just checked, leaving the door open behind her as she bolted the length of the massive first floor to get to the sounds.

She was ten feet away when the human voice shouted again, and when she recognized Jason bellowing, " _Hold on—stay still!"_ her thoughts plummeted into the worst possible places. He'd smuggled Venusaur into the house—he was trying to tame his starter and was going to get sliced right in half or strangled or crushed. Gina threw herself against the door and burst into the room.

Jason jerked at her sudden entry and half-spun to face her, face wild with frustration and alarm. Gina, however, was scouring the room behind him for leaves or vines or petals—but found none.

Aerodactyl was the source of the screaming and banging. Jason's fossil Pokémon was carving a path of absolute destruction across the training room, slamming headlong into the upper corners of the room, shrieking, braying, slashing the walls with her tail spade. Gina had only caught a glimpse of Blake trying to "train" his new Fearow once before, but it had looked alarmingly close to this.

Jason backed up until he was beside her. "I don't know what happened!" he shouted over the shrieking Pokémon. The strain and despair in his voice broke her heart. "I was just trying to—it was a normal training session!"

Gina called to him the best she could, turning her face toward his ear even as both of them never took their eyes off the distressed, screaming creature. "Nothing unusual happened!?"

"No! I let her out and she was acting weird, and the more I tried the more she just—" Jason let out a muffled cry of frustration and the sound was nearly echoed across the room as Aerodactyl spun a tight circle of crazed flight near the ceiling. "Like that! Just like this!" he said, pointing to her. "Every time I try to return her she dodges, I don't know what's wrong!"

Horrible theories and fears flared up like an allergic reaction in Gina's tense mind. They'd been so sure only Venusaur was affected at the fight in the forest, but had they missed something? Had one of Jason's Pokéballs been corrupted somehow? Wouldn't he have noticed?

Before she could make heads or tails of what to do, a voice sounded directly behind them and made Gina jump and bang painfully into Jason.

"Stay right here, against this wall." Gina spun and came face-to-face with Lance, his presence alone so commanding she split sideways from Jason so he could pass between them. Jason started forward as if to intervene, or question, or help—Gina didn't know which, but knew he shouldn't do any of it. She darted over to him and tugged him back with her. He only resisted for a moment.

From where they stood they had front-row seats. Lance walked calmly into the center of the room, his limp barely noticeable now, and though she could only see the back of his head she knew his eyes were fixed unblinkingly on the Pokémon circling above.

She wasn't at all sure what to expect. Would he shout commands? Make a hand gesture, the way the Nakawas did? She wouldn't have been at all shocked even if he sprouted wings from his back and rocketed up to grapple her into submission by force.

Instead Lance waited. He said nothing, and far as Gina could see, he did nothing. Aerodactyl circled and circled, but didn't pinball off the walls anymore, and the screams had died down to deep, throaty rattles of displeasure. Gina couldn't understand what the difference was.

When Jason's Pokémon finally craned her neck down to look below her, her circle of flight tightened at once. She spun mid air right above Lance, almost looking like she was readying herself for a predatory dive and strike, but the eldest member of the Elite Four didn't budge. He watched her, and Gina would have bet her last mark he wasn't even blinking.

Aerodactyl dropped lower in a lurch and Gina grasped Jason's sleeve. He tensed beside her and Aerodactyl spun back up to the ceiling, a sharper warble breaking free from her throat, and Lance called calmly over his shoulder to them, "Jason. Be calm. If you cannot manage this, give Aerodactyl's ball to Gina and remove yourself from the room."

Jason went even more rigid beside her at the words, and as if Aerodactyl had received orders via walkie talkie, she screeched once more. Lance raised his voice.

"What part don't you understand?" he asked, and Gina couldn't for the life of her figure out how a person could snap at someone but keep their tone of voice so level and soothing. She swallowed around a painfully dry throat and Jason turned himself away from the sight, evidently unable to master himself any other way. His expression was taut and furious, but Gina didn't think he was mad at any of them, somehow.

Gina didn't think. She just slid her hand into Jason's and squeezed. It didn't matter if they were weird with each other right now—it didn't matter if he'd been hard to deal with, or snappy, or circling the drain of another cycle of self-defeat. He squeezed back, and not a twitch of discomfort or even the tiniest jolt of nerves passed between them.

Aerodactyl circled lower, responding, and Gina thought she finally understood. She murmured quiet narration to Jason as she watched, wanting to continue this slow process of calming. "She's better. Getting lower," she murmured. Jason let out a soft breath, relief sagging through his shoulders, and in tandem Aerodactyl landed beside Lance.

Her lavender sides heaved and she twitched every so often, as if awaiting the starting bell for a race. Lance approached her in smooth, even strides, not even remotely perturbed, and though she shirked away from him just a touch, she stayed her ground when he reached out and smoothed a hand over her snout. Gina would have taken a tumble down ten flights of stairs gladly before touching a creature of that size that had so recently been screaming and crashing dents into the support beams.

Lance leaned closer to Jason's Pokémon and told her things Gina couldn't hear. His normally booming, carrying voice didn't even make it to her as a slight murmur, but she knew, somehow, he was speaking.

She nudged Jason gently. "I think it's okay," she said, jerking her head toward Lance. "She's stopped."

Jason twisted to look at his Pokémon and though Aerodactyl tried to pivot to look his way at once, Lance put a hand against her nose and she twisted back to look at him again, her tiny turn arrested and stopped without any effort. Gina's breath left her on a long, slow sigh. It took her a second to dig under the tangle of leftover nerves and figure out that what she was feeling was awe.

Lance spoke up after another moment or two, his voice carrying over to them effortlessly, but not harshly. Aerodactyl didn't even twitch in his grasp. "She will let you return her now."

Jason didn't need to be told twice. He stepped forward, drew the copper ball level, and hesitated for only a moment. Aerodactyl looked his way and brayed softly, an exhausted sound that almost sounded like an apology.

"It's alright," he told her, and though she was standing behind him Gina could imagine his smile as he recalled her back in a flash of light.

The second she was gone the mood of the room shifted. It was so dramatic a difference Gina half-expected to see a low, frosty fog roll in. Lance turned his face from where the dragon had been and locked his tawny eyes on Jason's face, a quiet, slow-moving, thunderous anger rising up around him.

Jason tried to speak but Lance cut him off. "You don't know anything about your Pokémon." Jason tried to speak again but Lance lifted a hand now and Jason fell silent as if he was just another dragon to tame.

"They feed off your emotions," he explained, and Gina had never enjoyed being right less in her life. "The more unstable you are, the more unstable they feel. You have to hold your core of steel and stillness inside you even when your body and mind are a hurricane. You need to exist in the eye." It should have been cheesy, but it wasn't. Gina was enraptured, hanging off every word, half of her still grimacing for Jason while the other half was swept away by Lance's words. "They exist in the eye alongside you."

And just like that, the spell broke, and Lance's anger reached its boiling point and tipped over. The rolling poetry of his simple commands shattered and cold, disgusted disdain seared every next word deep inside Gina—and they weren't even intended for her.

"I don't know why she chose you. You clearly are not ready."

Gina kept the grimace off her face, but it was like clinging to a cliff by her fingernails. Lance strode across the room, his limp all but gone in his anger, and he didn't even slow to deliver his last words, breezing straight past Jason.

"Do not _ever_ train with your team in this frame of mind again." The door slammed behind them and the silence left behind ached.

Gina tried to fill it against her better judgment. "Jason—"

Of all the things for him to cut her off with, "thanks," was the last thing she expected. It was a little flat, a little stiff, but he cleared his throat and went on. "Thank you. I'm…" He seemed to amend something. "Gonna be fine." She knew he had changed it at the last second, made it more truthful than, _I'm fine._ "I'll turn in soon."

She was being dismissed, kindly but with no uncertainty, and as much as she wished it wasn't, it was a relief. She stood there, eyes on the back of her best friend's head, and dug deep with both hands, looking for the right thing to do. Her compass arrow spun wildly.

She'd taken so many steps back already, and each time she did she tried desperately not to imagine them as more and more miles logged into her journey away from the paint-spattered boy who had been her best friend. The easy path was the one she'd been taking over and over when it came to Jason, and what was worse was that he himself was pushing her along it. The overgrown, blocked off detour that led back to him was treacherous and long, but Gina would have rolled up her sleeves and dived in any day. She would have, if it wasn't so obvious he didn't want her to.

 _Obvious._ That word again. Was it, really?

"I know why she picked you." Gina hadn't planned on speaking, but now that she'd started it seemed ridiculous to leave off there and retreat. "Lance has… only seen a slice of the person you are. He knows his stuff. Sure. But he doesn't know _you,_ and I do. I get what you were trying to do tonight. And you'd never have trained if… if you'd known. He doesn't understand that, but he doesn't matter." The words felt sort of like blasphemy, and she fought the urge to make sure Lance hadn't returned just in time to hear them. "So… yeah."

Gina's finishes were never strong, but she brushed aside any lingering discomfort. She'd said her piece, at least, and turning to go now felt like an okay compromise between running away like a scared kid or hacking away at that overgrown, dangerous path back to Jason at three in the morning when she was already so exhausted.

But she'd not even made it two steps to the door when he spoke. "Gina—wait." She did, but didn't turn around to face him, still staring at the ajar door. A flicker of complicated nerves turned her stomach into weak, half-hearted knots.

Jason's footsteps drew level with her, and she saw his hesitation before he put a hand on her shoulder so she would turn to face him. She did, staring at his collarbone first, but finally dragging her eyes up to his.

Her throat closed off immediately. The old sorrow in her best friend's too-young face was painted over with an openness she'd not seen on him in years. The honest gratitude, the desperate fear he'd do something wrong, the affection and guilt and love there prickled tears into her own eyes like he'd found a big red button inside her and jammed it all from the power of that one look.

"Thank you," he said again, and this time it wasn't stiff, or forced, or exhausted and defeated. He moved forward and she met him halfway in a bone-cracking hug. " _Thank you_ ," he said again, and his voice wavered and Gina lost. Hot tears spilled down her cheeks and she made the mistake of trying to clamp down on an intake of breath, which just made it worse when the jarring hiccup of a sob cut through her body. Jason hugged her tighter and choked out, "you're always there. You keep trying to—to help me and I—I'm sorry."

Gina shook her head, violently, but she didn't know what she was disagreeing with, not completely. She wasn't always there. She understood that she wasn't helping in the right ways, but if she'd ever needed a kick in the pants to adjust what she was doing, this was it. She sniffed, heavily and so loud it was awful, but neither of them seemed to care.

"I don't think I can sleep tonight," Gina said, her _n_ sounds already thick and inexact. "You wanna just walk around, maybe? Eat all the leftovers, make Kaylee mad?"

Jason huffed out a broken laugh and rested his cheek on top of her head, but a second later he let her go. Gina took a few steps back, and only wavered internally for a moment before her needle found true north again.

"Yeah," he said. "I think I'd like that."

* * *

 _Author's note: For those who don't often get to my profile page, small update. Lots of really really weird RL stuff this summer but I am back. Plotting difficulties but I'm pushing through it. Thanks for your patience._


	14. Step One :Kaylee:

Pokémon Azure

Chapter 14: Step One

(Kaylee Harrison)

Kaylee woke like an electric current when the sun was already streaming weakly through her window. She cursed, rolled over on her phone and swept it up in a half-asleep hand. Pins and needles shot up her arm as she glared hatefully down at the perfectly silent shaking icon of an alarm clock.

She rolled herself upright and leaned forward, elbows on her knees, feeling sick. Being up this early wasn't natural, and she'd even overslept her alarm by 45 minutes. Her mood blackened. Those were 45 fewer minutes she'd have with Beth before she left.

Not willing to lose any more time, Kaylee climbed to her feet, blinked with effort, and stumbled her way to the bathroom. After a record-breaking morning prep routine, she slipped from her room and peered down over the railing to the wide-open living room below.

Her best friend came with sensors built in. Beth tipped her head back and peered upside-down at Kaylee, smiled at the sight of her, and held up her finger in the "one second" motion. She looked back at her speaking partner—Victoria—and Kaylee, relieved, killed time rubbing the sleep out of her eyes until Beth bounded up the stairs to meet her outside Kaylee's door.

Beth spun herself around the banister and grinned broadly at Kaylee, her expression 90% warmth and 10% worry, entirely too energetic for this early in the morning. To Kaylee's horror, heat prickled viciously in her throat.

Beth saw it, and without a word pointed to her own closed bedroom door. Kaylee nodded, aware the jerk of her head looked surly and gruff, and followed Beth to her room. The moment they were shut away inside the safe haven, Beth turned on Kaylee and tugged her into a tight hug.

Kaylee lost the fight against a huge, shuddering sniffle immediately. Laughter exploded out of her as a direct response. "Shit," she said, burying her face in Beth's shoulder, and Beth chuckled by her ear.

"Yah," Beth said, affecting a vague accent. Kaylee sucked in a deep breath and held it, and Beth laughed again. "Is that a thing that works? Holding your breath, like trying to cure hiccups?" The breath rushed out of Kaylee in another laugh and she jabbed Beth in the side.

They pulled away and Kaylee mopped at her eyes with her hand. "I'm only like this because I got like, two hours of sleep last night," she insisted.

"Same," Beth sighed, undoing and redoing her ponytail, allowing a trace of her exhaustion to filter onto her face. She studied Kaylee's expression though, silent and thoughtful. "But, I mean… there's more to it than that for you."

Kaylee privately felt she might have balked or bristled if confronted that directly by anyone else. But she'd set her alarm for too-early-o'-clock for a reason, even if her phone had sabotaged her. Beth was her go-to girl, her best friend, and she was also very inconveniently leaving for Cerulean the very day Kaylee needed her as a sounding board most. "Yeah," she said, trying to temper the reluctance in her voice at least a little. "I know. And I don't have the first idea what to do."

Beth's smile was sad, understanding, tired and full of love. "I get that," she said. "I'd say, _go talk to him, Kay!_ but I know you'll do that as soon as you're ready."

"Yeah," Kaylee agreed. Eye contact was hard right now, so she didn't bother trying, staring morosely at the corner of the room instead. "I'm just—upset. Distracted. I know I have to—have to talk to him but, I don't want to go in there like this, you know? Worked up, messed up."

"You're not messed up," Beth said gently, but other than that didn't interrupt.

"I _feel_ messed up," Kaylee mumbled. "I feel like I'm not ready to do this, but I also feel like it's gonna get worse the longer I wait. But I don't want to rush in there and screw it up _more_ just because I'm impatient."

Beth bit her lip, which Kaylee knew to be her tell for when she was debating how to say something. Kaylee resisted the urge to ask her to be blunt, and waited it out. What she ended up saying wasn't what Kaylee had expected. "I feel like I'm not qualified to give advice on that topic," she said, and Kaylee frowned. Beth gave her a small, sad smile and shrugged. "I'm not exactly a banner example of, um, having difficult discussions in a timely manner."

Understanding melted the confusion on Kaylee's face. "Well—I mean. That's a bit different, don't beat yourself up about Rei." She didn't mean for it to, but disdain colored the three letters of Beth's ex-boyfriend's name. "He's not making this easy for you at all."

"I won't," Beth promised, and fluidly shifted the subject back to Kaylee. "You have a point, though. Do you think Tim will try to shut you out?"

Kaylee opened her mouth to say, _of course not,_ but couldn't quite make the words a reality. She saw her own distress mirrored back to her mixed with sympathy on Beth's face, and a different, entirely unwelcome set of three words left Kaylee's throat instead. "… I don't know."

"I highly doubt that," Beth said, gently. "I don't… I don't agree, with what Jason and he were originally planning to do." Beth swallowed, blinked rapidly a few times, and pushed on through what was apparent worry. "I don't mean to say I'm judging them for it. It's just—not what I'd have tried. That, though? That doesn't matter. What matters is there's a big, huge difference between not wanting to involve your girlfriend in something that—that unpleasant, and shutting her out of your life completely. I don't think he'd do that."

"Beth," Kaylee interrupted, needing to get something out. "Please don't worry—about, I mean, I can see it? That you're worried. Just because you don't like what Tim did doesn't mean I'm gonna lash out at you. And—the rest of it? Thank you." She swallowed, breathed out as much tension as she could, and crossed over to fold Beth up in another hug. She'd have to fill up on those while she could. Her sigh was a little shaky. "I'll try."

* * *

All too soon, Beth and Blake were gone. Kaylee knew the plan was for their two Cerulean recruiters to borrow Tim's Jynx as their teleporter for the trip, and while they exchanged last minute contingency plans with Gav and Victoria, Kaylee kept waiting for Tim to appear. Her nerves were at a breaking point by the time Beth unclasped a Pokéball from her belt and Kaylee realized it was Tim's—they must have done the swap earlier in the morning.

Feeling like an idiot, Kaylee folded herself down into a wooden chair at Gav's tech table, staring at the blank screen of her brother's phone. There was a tell-tale silence behind her and she knew that Victoria and Gav were watching the back of her head for a moment, no doubt concerned, but they made the wise choice to leave her be and take their mutterings elsewhere. Kaylee frowned a little, half tempted to ask Gav if he wanted to take his phone with him, but a part of her couldn't bear to start a conversation with anyone right now.

Without her strictly meaning it to, her mind started to categorize the likely places she could find Tim. Training would be #1 on her list, but it was possible he'd stepped out for a run in the greenhouse, too. He was no doubt still agitated, probably more than she was, and elevating his heartrate was his paradoxical way to zen out from stress.

Before Kaylee could decide one way or another if she wanted to hunt her boyfriend down, Gav's phone buzzed on the table. She jumped a little, glancing down at it, and spotted Nick's series of coded symbols flashing there. Kaylee hesitated for a second, but knew better than to let it go to voicemail. Nick might think something was wrong if she did.

Kaylee jabbed the button and leaned over the phone, intending to talk into it with the speakerphone option, but when Nick's pale, tired face flicked across the screen instead Kaylee's eyebrows shot up.

"Oh," she said. "Uh, can you see me too? Hi, by the way. I'm Kaylee, not Gav. Which was hopefully obvious."

Nick grinned and tapped his chin with his knuckle in a show of thoughtfulness. "We-e-ell…" he teased, and Kaylee wrinkled her nose at him before picking the phone up so she could give him a better angle for talking rather than the bottom of her chin and up her nostrils.

"Well," Nick said, his grin downgraded to his usual sleep-deprived smile, "I just wanted to check in with you all. See how—" his pause was so slight it might not have been there, "Wyland and Zahlia are doing, primarily."

Kaylee wished, desperately and direly, that her face wasn't such an open book. She grimaced, looked away, and said, "Well, um—I heard Gav and Vee talking, Zahlia's fine. Resting mostly. And um, I haven't… _heard_ anything about Wyland so. I'm figuring no news is good news."

She saw Nick nod once, thoughtfully, out of the corner of her eye and glanced back to his face, trying to master her own expression. But she saw the consideration he was giving her and knew she'd utterly failed. Nick blew out a slow breath, ran a hand through rumpled black hair, and out of seemingly nowhere said, "Hey, so. We're not crazy close, you and I, but Tim might as well be my brother by blood, and I'd like to think of myself as your friend. So I hope I'm not overstepping when I say you seem pretty miserable and I'd like to offer support if I can."

Kaylee fought through conflicting tides of mortification and a touched sort of warmth. She knew everything she felt was telegraphed and announced via megaphone the second she felt it. Her knee-jerk reaction was to issue a "thanks but no thanks" to Nick, but before she could bulldoze her way through that urge she stopped herself.

Kaylee took a minute. She closed her eyes, knowing the expression was being watched, trying not to care. "I, like—not 'am,' but, 'will' be fine. Thank you for—for, yeah. I think of you as my friend, of course I do. A part of me sort of wants to talk but a part of me thinks it's…"

"Weird?" Nick supplied, easy as ever, and Kaylee opened her eyes to catch his completely open, understanding expression, colored with just a little amusement in his smile. "Yeah, a bit, but hey. I gotta swing by sometime this week anyway to check on Venusaur and Zeke's old roster, map progress and all that. No reason that can't be today. Some organizer or other clearly must've been murdered, because someone's slipping on their job of keeping my schedule brutally packed. I've got a window this morning." Kaylee snorted at that and Nick grinned. "So how's about that? I'll be over in a tick, meet ya in the greenhouse. We can chat or not chat, entirely up to you."

Kaylee hesitated for only a second. "Yeah," she said, finally. "Yeah, that'd be… nice. Thanks, Nick. See you in a bit."

Kaylee hung up Gav's phone, wondering vaguely when her brother had tricked it out with that videophone upgrade. She left it where she'd found it, got up, and made her way out to the greenhouse. The buttery sunlight streaming through smooth glass felt wildly out of sorts with her own inner turmoil.

Venusaur was asleep, which was a rarity. He dropped off like this from time to time, when raging and snarling got old and sheer exhaustion took him, but Kaylee liked to hope that this nap was a sign that he was getting a little more comfortable here. He didn't stir when she drew nearer, which was another slight improvement. In the first several days he'd been enclosed here any approach would drive him up the wall.

Kaylee folded herself down into a butterfly stretch and tried to fight back her nerves. This was good, she told herself, closing her eyes and letting the sun bake the back of her neck. It was a rare chance to talk to one of Tim's oldest friends, and while she flat-out refused to call this gossiping, she couldn't deny that picking Nick's brain a little might be just what she needed.

When Nick slipped his way into the greenhouse and drew level with her, Kaylee had almost succeeded in working herself down from her nerves. She glanced up to him and clapped a hand to her face to stifle a snort-laugh that surely would have woken Venusaur.

"Judge me not," Nick said from behind sunglasses and beneath a wide-brimmed black hat. "The sun is my enemy and I am a weak and pasty delicate flower."

"Oh my god," Kaylee said, judgment dripping from each word, and Nick smirked down at her and stuck out his tongue.

"Yeah, yeah," he said, peering myopically over the sunglasses, eyes watery and squinty. "Ugh," he said decidedly, retreating back behind the lenses. "I don't see how you can handle that."

"I've got many gifts," Kaylee said cryptically, but smiled over at Nick as he sat down beside her, shifting a little to get comfortable with what looked like a stiff back.

"Apparently," Nick said, peering her way thoughtfully. "Putting up with Tim is one of them." There was an exasperated kind of warmth in his tone and Kaylee's smile downgraded to a sadder, confused one.

She'd thought it would be harder to start talking about this, but to her surprise the heart of the issue came to her easily out here under the gentle beat of the sun's rays. "It's not… even that I disagree, I mean, with what Tim, Jason and Zahlia did. I don't," she insisted, frowning down at the grass. She knew it was only a matter of time before she started fussily picking at it. "Even what Jason and Tim had planned at first. I'd have been for it. It sucks and I hate that it would've come to something like that, but I'd have been there next to them." Beside her Nick was perfectly quiet, so Kaylee barreled on. "Maybe other people are—I dunno, surprised, but I know Tim's the kind of person to pull out all the stops and do what needs to be done. It's—" She felt red crawling up her neck and cheeks but braved through it. "It's part of what I like so much about him." She cleared her throat, brushed the back of her hand across her cheek, and finished her thought. "Bottom line is I'd have stood there beside him but he didn't give me the chance to. I—I'm afraid he doesn't trust me. Or, I don't know, like—like he doesn't think I can _deal_. Last thing, the very _last_ thing I want is to feel like my boyfriend thinks I'm a kid he has to protect." Kaylee blew out a breath of air, sucked a new one in and said, emphatically, "well, _shit._ There you go, betcha regret coming to chat now, huh?"

"Not even a little," Nick replied smoothly, without even a beat. Kaylee envied that gift of the gab, something Gav had most of the time, too. Nick Mentaro probably did the League proud every time he took up the mantle as current Champ. "Honestly? I'm a little… surprised, that you don't take issue with Tim's plan. Hell, _I_ take a tiny bit of issue with Tim's plan, and I actually get where he's coming from with all this." Kaylee snapped her head over to look at Nick, surprised, and Nick groaned a little and slipped his sunglasses off, folding the arms down and pocketing them in his dark blue shirt pocket. He looked half-blind and miserable, but she appreciated the gesture. She could read his expressions better now.

"I always knew you two had a lot in common, but I guess I never realized how much, before," Nick mused. "It's a good thing," he added, glancing at her sidelong through slightly watery eyes. "That said… I fully get why you're worried about all that. From where you're standing, it'd look exactly like what you described." Nick closed his eyes and rubbed his palms into them for a moment, heaving a slow and steady sigh. "So, I hope you'll let me banish some of those fears. You're right, on one hand, that Tim is trying to protect you." Kaylee's slightly dismayed confusion was chased away a second later when Nick chuckled. "Thing is though? Tim tries to protect _everyone._ Every damned one." He blinked over at Kaylee, adjusting better to the light, and the earnestness on his face put her slightly more at ease. "You caught it last night, right? The way Tim kept saying ' _I_ was ready to do what needed to be done.' And, conversely, how Jason had to fight to get those 'we's' in there? To assure the rest of the group that he was part of the plan?" Kaylee nodded. "That was very intentional, trust me. Bet you dollars to donuts Tim wanted to take the fall completely for what happened."

Kaylee frowned, but nodded slowly. "I… I can see that, I guess," she allowed.

Nick nodded and leaned back, stretching his spine this way and that. "What's more," he added, his tone a little gentler, "remember, too, that all of that stuff that happened last night sure as hell was news to me and Casey, too. You say you'd have been standing there beside him if he'd asked. You _know_ Case 'n I'd've been there too, in a heartbeat. But he didn't ask us, either."

A weird kind of shame mingled with hot relief and flooded up Kaylee's cheeks to her ears. She'd forgotten—or, more accurately, hadn't even contemplated it to begin with. Casey and Nick were Tim's oldest friends, and had certainly proved their competence and strength to Tim time and time again for years. Yet they hadn't been "invited" either. It was stupid of her to feel she had the market cornered on being left out.

"I just—" she started, frowning hard with sudden, burning confusion, and a dire, yawning need to know. "Why? Why is he like that? And it doesn't bother you, that he is?" she asked, turning her new fervor on Nick, leaning forward on her knees.

Nick gave her a small, sad smile. "Oh, trust me, Kaylee. It bugged the hell out of me at first. Sometimes it still does. We've had plenty of three-way fights about it over the years. Punches were thrown once or twice." He smirked, looked down to the grass and shook his head. "The only reason it's gotten easier is pure number of years. That and I get where he's coming from—I've lived through a lot of those lean times, and those rock bottoms with him. The reasons why he is the way he is." Questions burned in Kaylee's stomach but she fought them back, because slowly, bit by bit, she was learning to read the mood of a conversation, and something told her Nick would divulge more if given a bit of space and time.

The current Champ glanced across the way to Venusaur's enclosure, a tiny frown on his face, and Kaylee quickly flitted her gaze that way too, half-worried something had happened there. But Venusaur snoozed on, only twitching lightly here and there. The sound of their voices hadn't roused them, and once again she dared to attribute that as a good sign. Nick took a moment, pulled in a slow, gentle sigh, and shook his head.

"You know," he said, thoughtful and slow. "It's funny that we're out here. With Venusaur. Appropriate, I mean, not… not funny." A dark, low weight colored his last two words and nerves mingled with dread in Kaylee's gut, extinguishing the fire of her unasked questions. "I don't… know if Tim told you. I almost hesitate to, but… I don't think he'd mind, this. It'd mean he doesn't have to tell the story himself, and it's a hard one for him to relive. You can tell him I told you and if he's mad he can come take it up with me." Nick glanced at Kaylee and she nodded once, mute.

Nick pulled in a sigh and continued. "Tim was, essentially, an Initiate." At Kaylee's frank confusion he elaborated. "No Dex or anything like that, but Professor Drake did give him a Bulbasaur. Tim didn't really expect that, never knew why the professor trusted him with one of those leftover Pokémon once the true Initiates were done picking. 'Course, it makes sense now, given… well, family history and all."

Kaylee nodded, solemn, but the writhing cold in her stomach had traveled up her throat. One fact kept circling in her head, over and over, sinking in icy roots. Tim didn't have a Venusaur on his roster anymore.

"His starter… died," Nick said, electing not to beat around the bush. Kaylee both appreciated it and wished she'd been eased into the truth she'd guessed from the beginning. She sucked in a small breath and looked away, trying to master her emotions. "It wasn't an accident, wasn't an illness. It happened in Viridian Forest… Tim was doing some traveling on his own, away from me and Casey. We only heard about it after the fact."

Nick trailed off, and Kaylee battled furiously with the urge to leave it be or ask him for more. A part of her—a very large part—didn't want to know. But an even larger part needed to. She pulled in a breath and only managed to get out, "How did…?" before the rest of her words failed her.

Nick didn't make her finish her question. "Now? I mean, looking back on it? We all know an Aggro Device was involved. At the time, we had no clue what happened. Tim had Ivysaur out with him pretty much all the time. Well, Ivysaur or Mankey. But Ivysaur was the 'mon that was out of his ball when Tim got into range of an AD, and so Ivysaur was the one that… was affected." Nick brushed a hand through his hair and left it there, closing his eyes. "His own Pokémon tried to kill him. Tim managed to return Ivysaur and beat it away from that place. Let out Mankey to help him calm Ivysaur down, then let Ivysaur back out. Didn't… go well. Ivysaur wasn't better."

"Being out of range didn't…?" Kaylee asked, and Nick shook his head.

"Not sure if what he ran into was an older, crueler version of an AD, before they'd refined it. But no, Ivysaur's behavior didn't change even when they were far away from the spot where he'd been exposed. There was a fight. Tim tried to recall him and Ivysaur destroyed the Pokéball. Everything that could go wrong, did. It's why Primeape has all those scars. Tim didn't even get away unscathed." He eyed Kaylee as if debating something. "You ever seen Tim's back, without his shirt on?"

Under normal circumstances Kaylee would have been flustered by that line of questioning, but the horror of this explanation was still a little too fresh. She frowned and gave it real thought. "Horrible footage in a video once. But… no, I think he's always sort of made sure his back's not fully to me. Might've seen glimpses?"

Nick nodded. "Well, it's where that scar's from so… now you won't accidentally stumble into asking about it, I guess." He glanced off toward Venusaur and Kaylee half-wanted to let the conversation end there, but the unfinished story was branching off in too many horrible ways in her mind. She had to know what happened.

"So he couldn't return Ivysaur. And Ivysaur was—hurting him and Mankey. Not stopping?"

Nick nodded. "Tim didn't… tell us the details. But Ivysaur died in the fight. I know—" Nick stopped and swallowed hard, then looked skyward in a way that Kaylee recognized. It was the posture of someone controlling their emotions carefully. "I know Tim would have tried everything to get Ivysaur to stop, to get him to safety. But in the end I guess his Pokémon wasn't going to stop until Tim and Mankey were dead. I can't…" He blew out a breath. "Actually imagine. Even a little."

Kaylee pressed her hand over her mouth and closed her eyes, fighting off a rising tide of horror that nearly made her sick. Nick let her have her minute to regroup, and when Kaylee was ready to speak again her voice cracked. "… Thank you for telling me."

"It's not a problem," Nick said. "Like I said—he might be relieved he doesn't have to relive it and tell you himself."

Kaylee blinked back tears and tried to steady her now erratic breathing. "I… I think I've just got, got the one question left," she said, hot behind her ears and in her throat and in the center of her chest. She felt it, that familiar need to move, to take the emotion she felt and run with it, run hard and fast until her heart exploded or she reached what she wanted—whichever came first.

"Go for it," Nick said, and his voice was as gentle as his expression, a calm understanding Kaylee clung to.

"How can I prove to him that I'm in this?" she asked, the words tumbling out. "That I want to deal with things _with_ him, by his side, together, instead of just—just _watching_ him do it alone?" She knew she probably looked desperate by now, wrung out and emotionally exhausted while at the same time keyed up.

Nick didn't let anything show on his face other than that growing warmth, a kind of relief mixed with amusement mixed with kindness. "While I'm divulging things, I think it's worth it for you to know this last bit. Maybe he doesn't go around parading it, but Kaylee, seriously? Tim thinks the world of you. It isn't that he wants to be alone. It isn't that he thinks you can't fight this fight with him. Trust me, he knows. You impressed him, you know, from the very beginning. He never underestimated you, never saw you as some kid who didn't know enough. You mattered to him then and you matter to him now—and that's where this all stems from. My advice?" he said, breaking the spell, for which Kaylee was extremely grateful. She didn't think she could stand to hear any more without bursting into tears. "Just be there. Be patient, but don't let him dictate how this goes, yeah? What you want and what you think matter too. Don't be afraid to put your foot down… and above all else, do what you feel is right."

Kaylee was already on her feet before Nick was even done speaking. Fire was her element, her blood and bone and marrow, and right now the purpose that had been smothered and dark inside her was back, brilliant and hot.

"Thank you," she said to Nick, her voice quiet but full of steady, profound weight.

"Any time," he said, and his tone was anything but dismissive. The smile he wore as he looked up at her, shielding his eyes from the sun with one hand, was almost enough to prick tears into her eyes again. She didn't think he could have looked more grateful and trusting than if she'd actually pulled Tim from stormy seas or a burning building with her bare hands. Seeing that, the depth of that old friendship, and how willingly Nick delivered his oldest friend to her care—

She didn't want to waste another second. Without another word, Kaylee bolted.

Tim wasn't in the training room. He wasn't running through the greenhouse, obviously, and Kaylee knocked on his door, hunted through the kitchens, peered into the conference room. The thundering of her pulse didn't slow or cool, but the confusion doubled and tripled until it was in danger of becoming real worry.

Kaylee nearly ran into Orion as she rounded the corner from her third pass into the laundry area. Orion held his hands out and steadied her as she stumbled back upright.

"Have you seen Tim?" Kaylee blurted out before she could think better of it.

A tiny darkness passed across Orion's face, but it was gone as soon as it came. Belatedly, Kaylee realized Orion's hands were stained with blue. Confusion furrowed her brow a second before she realized why—paint. He'd been painting the scenes from the videos.

"He's with Wyland," Orion said. "Been there all morning." At the complete bewilderment that passed over Kaylee's face, Orion's mouth twitched into the tiniest of smiles. "Haven't heard any screams or crashes, so I'm sure it's fine."

Kaylee's face twisted into a weird almost-smile at that, and Orion's twitched into a look of regret. "Not funny, sorry," he said, backing up a step.

"No, it's—you're fine," Kaylee said, wanting to do too many things. She knew the dark humor was a new thing, part of the Orion 2.0 package, and didn't want him thinking it wasn't okay. Another part of her wanted to see his paintings, but that, too, would have to wait. "Thanks," she said, spinning around and dashing to the stairwell.

Her thoughts raced as she climbed the steps four at a time at a dead run. Was Tim on some kind of bedside watch out of punishment? That seemed out of character for Gav and Victoria, and what was more, she couldn't imagine Tim going for something like that. Confusion and doubt warred with her eagerness to talk to her boyfriend, and she hesitated a full, agonizing five seconds before Wyland's closed door before she gingerly tried the handle.

It was unlocked and slipped open easily. Kaylee peered inside, and Tim turned to look her way from where he was seated beside Wyland's bed.

The Ghost trainer was pale and troubled, shifting restlessly in his sleep. He'd always looked a little sleep deprived, but there were darker circles under his eyes now. Kaylee dragged her eyes away from his haggard face to glance at Tim, and she caught the tail end of some kind of vulnerable expression. Tim masked it, locking his expression down into something a little tired, but very calm, and Kaylee wanted to explode into a torrent of talk.

Instead she pointed out the door and raised her eyebrows, a silent question. Tim hesitated for a moment, then nodded and climbed to his feet. He motioned to the corner of the room—Kaylee hadn't seen Magneton floating there, eerily silent as always. Tim pointed to Wyland, then himself, and his Electric-type twisted in the air in a counterclockwise pattern that seemed to satisfy Tim. The Champ turned to follow Kaylee out and left the door to Wyland's room ajar.

They didn't speak as Kaylee led the way down the hall to her room, slipping in and trusting Tim would close them in when he was done. He did, and her pulse quadrupled its pace.

"I—" she burst out, resigned to the fact that subtlety and nuance would never be her forte. "I just, I wanted to talk, because—I get you, alright? I get why you—why you do this, why you didn't tell me, last night. I don't _like_ it, and I really wish you _would_ tell me—well, anything, _everything,_ so I can be with you, I mean, be there for you and with you—but I get why you're not. That you want to—to protect me, or something, but I just—I need you to know that it's kind of not. Having the intended effect."

Tim, bless him, let her babble herself through her trainwreck of an opening speech. He was wearing a small frown by the time she was done, but there was a tentative uncertainty and hope in his light blue eyes too. "I… intended effect?" he finally said, latching onto one part that probably hadn't made a lot of sense.

"Just—sure, maybe you want to shield me from unpleasant things, but it's… not what I want. It's not what's good for me, or us. I feel—shut out, you know? I _felt_ like maybe you didn't trust me, but I talked to Nick, and he promised that's not it." Kaylee bit her lip, wishing she'd dropped that part of the explanation a bit more gracefully, but Tim only looked tired and passingly amused for a brief blip. "Sorry. If that's weird, that we talked a little."

"It's fine—you're fine," Tim said. "I'm… glad, I guess, that he told you that. Because it's true. I do trust you." He said it so easily, with no hesitation or underlying struggle, and Kaylee's heart jumped several flights higher than where it had been pacing in her gut. "And I know you're tough. I know you've… endured a lot, already."

"It's true," Kaylee insisted, running with this train of thought even if she felt a little odd singing her own praises this way. "I have. I… not as much as you," she allowed. "Some of the same things but not… all of them. I get that. But you're right, I can handle my own. I can handle a hell of a lot more than you might think. And I _want_ to. You're here for me, I want to be here for you. No, not want." A little of her soothed anger kicked back, just enough to color her next words with fervor and passion. "I _need_ to be able to do that. That is what I expect in a relationship—any relationship, but especially between me and you. You've got to understand that, don't you? How unfair it is, to expect this road to go one way, for me to just—" She moved closer, propelled forward by the heat rising inside her, eyes locked to Tim's. His expression was both readable and cryptic, parts of it bare and clear—those parts were anxiety and reluctance. Kaylee desperately wanted to banish both to the farthest reaches of space. "Just _stand by_ and watch you go it alone? I can't do that, and you can't expect—"

It erupted out of Tim in a rush of words, sudden and violent and full of desperate, despairing heat.

"I don't want you to end up like me, okay?!"

Kaylee's forward momentum crashed to a dead stop. Her mouth was still open, halfway through whatever word she'd been forming next. Tim spun around, regrouping and going very still for a frightening second. A moment later, though, he let out a haggard sigh.

"Tim," Kaylee started, but it was his turn to talk.

"It's what I'm most afraid of," he said, his voice a hollow, husked-out version of itself. "I don't want to see that happen to you. If I'm—" he stopped, rubbed his hands over his face, then dragged them through his hair, still talking to the wall. "If I'm already… damaged. Not—not right. Then all the better it be me. No one else needs to do this. Not you."

Kaylee was glad that his back was turned. She didn't want the heartbroken despair on her face to be one more thing he carried on his shoulders. She knew there was no way she'd be able to control her face, either. She sucked in a breath, blinked hard against tears, and rushed forward to latch herself onto his back. Her arms flew around his torso in a bruising hug and she buried her face between his shoulderblades.

His arms grasped hers and she felt him lower his head until his chin hit his chest. She turned her face to the side so she could speak, pressing her cheek hard into his t-shirt. "You aren't _damaged,_ " she said, her voice ragged and raw, and she felt the shudder of feeling it caused in him. "I know about—about the loss of one of your team members. I know what it's like to lose family. I know you thought you could trust Hannah, and then she—I know it's a lot, Tim. I know it's a lot." Her voice cracked on the repetition and Tim whirled in her arms, but only so he could snatch her up in a real hug. Kaylee crushed them together so tight it wasn't even good, more heat and pain than anything honestly nice, but it was what she knew they needed. "If you're damaged then so am I. I can be paranoid, and jealous—I was so mad at Victoria, when she and Gav started taking on more and more together, did you know? I resented her because—my childhood was replaced by spying and collecting incriminating data, and then I thought, shit, what if I'm not even good enough to be Gav's go-to anymore? This whole messed up world of cloaks and daggers is my whole life and I can't even—" Kaylee felt Tim bury his face in her hair, but she wanted him to know it all, and she barreled on. "And Orion? When he left, we were all so crushed, but _I_ was the only one dumb enough to _charge him_ when he came back for a second to warn us to stay out of his business. I was the only one rash and reckless enough to get my arm broken by his Persian, everyone else was able to keep their shit together—and it's part of me, I'm afraid all the time and the thing I'm afraid of most is _not doing something_ when I should have _done something._ If you're damaged, I'm damaged too. And I'm not leaving you alone."

Tim had gone still, so very still wrapped around her, and with a terrified little blip Kaylee realized it—she'd never shared with him what happened to her during their fight with Orion before. Ice plunged down her throat into her stomach, but before she could stagger her way into damage control, Tim let out a shaky breath.

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice strange, but when Kaylee tried to pull back he held on tighter. "No, it's—it's okay."

She didn't know how to read the apology, or the reassurance, and she noted that he didn't make her any promises. But she could deal with that—she preferred it. If he'd started swearing he'd change overnight she'd have known he was lying, and she wouldn't have been able to handle the hurt that would come with that. Instead Tim held onto her and she held him back, anchored and anchoring. When she buried her cheek into his chest and felt him press that kiss to her forehead—the one she had misinterpreted so badly on Cinnabar—heat and love columned up inside her so hard it hurt. It wasn't perfect, but neither were they. It wasn't over, and it didn't need to be. Kaylee was alright with step one, because step one meant moving forward, and it was all she'd ask for today.


	15. Every Step of the Way :Beth:

Pokémon Azure

Chapter 15: Every Step of the Way

(Beth Larson)

The last time Beth was in Cerulean City she hadn't had a chance to enter the Gym. The fact that she was here now, seated in the tall, perpetually damp bleachers overlooking a thrilling trainer battle below wasn't tempered by nerves or worry or sorrow in the slightest. The nerves and worry and sorrow would be there when Beth was done here, but the amazing experience unfolding before her would not.

Lily Yawa's Pokémon of choice for this battle was an enormous Tentacruel, and what was more, Lily Yawa was astride it. Her thin legs dangled down the side of her Pokémon's massive head and Tentacruel seemed to be employing every trick it possessed to keep from uprooting her. The challenger at the edge of the pool called an order to her Raticate and the Tentacruel shifted forward only enough so it could bat the attack aside with one of its foremost arms. Lily laughed and clapped from where she was perched so precariously.

"Very good! I haven't toppled off yet, keep it up!" Her Tentacruel groaned as if complaining, but continued the battle with Lily atop its head like a stack of books.

The girl with the Raticate shouted out further commands while Beth leaned forward, shameless interest plastered all over her face. Lily's Tentacruel shifted a little under the impact of the strike, but otherwise didn't budge far. It only upset a tiny bit of water with its movement, a marked improvement from how much it had splashed out in earlier fights before Lily stationed herself on its head. Black ooze sprayed from under its beak a second later and the Raticate was forced to go on the defensive.

Beth was smiling so hard and wide her face hurt. Her jittery nerves had proved to be too much for her frequently throughout the several trainer battles Blake and she had sat through. Beth was forced to break up the giddy, adrenaline-high glee with constant mobile phone breaks. She could calm herself down by talking to Kaylee, Victoria, or a number of other friends so she wouldn't suffer a tragically-timed heart attack before she even had a chance to talk to her childhood hero.

Beth tugged her phone out of her bra now to check her messages. There was a text from Victoria saying _sounds good_ to a previous question, and a new one from Spikey. Beth eagerly clicked it open.

 _UGH girl don't even get me started! I kind of figured gentlemen were, oh, you know, Mew-status in today's age but he's so thoughtful and_

Beth's phone had cut her off there and the next chunk was exiled to a new message below it.

 _sweet—but not in a condescending way, you know? I mean, normally I don't think I could handle someone opening car doors for me but it's sooo okay when he does it_

Instead of a period at the end of her sentence Spikey had chosen to punctuate with several heart-eye emojis. Beth grinned at the message so broadly it hurt and tapped out her reply with flying fingers.

From beside her Blake groaned, then shouldered her. He had to slouch to do it. "Seriously?"

Beth's face heated up, which she bravely attributed to being caught texting like a tech-addicted ninny. "I was just finishing up!" she protested, shoving Blake back and unsuccessfully stifling a smile.

"You are literally in the presence of your favorite Gym Leader right now."

"And I _have_ been for two hours, I'll lose my mind if I don't break up the nerves with shameless texting."

"I'm younger than you, shouldn't _I_ be the one 'out of touch with reality?'" They continued taking good-natured potshots at each other and Beth grabbed her awkwardness by the reins and tugged hard.

Okay, so she was a little weird around Blake right now. That was okay—it wasn't the end of the world. She would see this as a speedbump, or a challenge, and she'd master it like a champion.

She was already overcoming major hurdles left and right, so what was one more? The talk she'd finally had with Rei had spanned several grating hours. Just remembering it all was exhausting. After the initial 20 Questions about her general state, and the well-being of the others, Rei had spent at least fifteen minutes trying not to sound angry. In fact, he'd probably been trying not to yell. Beth hadn't known whether to be grateful or not. She didn't want to be on the receiving end of his anger, but she knew the restraint that informed his words was born of fear. He didn't want to chase her away again for another huge chunk of time. Whatever easiness and trust that had existed between them was gone. More than once Beth imagined being tough enough to tell him, "If you're mad, just let me have it," but she was not her sister. She wasn't made of folded steel and forged in fire.

There was one detail she'd purposefully withheld from Rei in its entirety, and not because it simply hadn't come up. As of now, he had no idea that the man who'd attacked his aunt was Zahlia and Blake's brother. Beth wasn't sure what she hoped to achieve. If he joined them—and he'd asked to, of course—he'd find out sooner or later. It wasn't like her to hide from a painful eventuality but she didn't have the strength to face this one head-on just yet.

She _had_ told him she and her friends were present at the disaster at the Pokémon Tower. Rei, of course, had known immediately that the Fearow and the black-haired man who had fallen to his death were the same ones linked to Ida's injury, and when Beth had confessed their involvement he'd gone deadly quiet for several long minutes. It had been an attempt to reign in his temper—and it had ultimately failed. He'd not yelled, not quite, still afraid to scare her away, but the fury had been evident in his tone even if he hadn't. Beth didn't blame him, nor did she hold onto a single scrap of anger in her heart. She'd known Ida's attacker was still at large, had known it was the same person who assaulted the pair of them on their ill-fated date in Viridian so long ago, and she'd withheld it anyway.

Their first talk had already ended in a terrible stalemate, with Beth unable to figure out how to involve him, and neither of them deciding a thing about their relationship (not that Rei hadn't tried to breach the subject). She'd promised to call him back. She'd yet to do it.

That had been an unintended side-effect of her text break, and not wanting to chase that train of thought any longer, Beth stowed her phone and refocused on the fight. It was wrapping up now, and it didn't look like it would end well for the challenger. Beth felt a mingled combination of sympathy and envy as she watched the last-ditch effort the young trainer made to hold her own in those next decisive rounds.

There weren't a ton of recent photos of Lily in the papers. She was the sort of slow and steady Gym Leader who did her job, day after day, with such reliable excellence that no one had much of anything to say. The last pictures Beth had truly seen of Lily were from over four years ago, and she'd aged visibly since. Yet it wasn't the type of aging that made a person look frail or unhealthy. Her wrists were perhaps a little thinner, her hair certainly a lot whiter, and when she laughed—which was often—her crows feet nearly doubled. But Lily Yawa looked to be one of those rare people who only got happier with age. Even when the owner of the Raticate had to concede defeat, Lily slipped from her Tentacruel's head and spent the full ten minutes while the water was refilled talking with her. Though her challenger had initially looked disheartened, by the time the girl left she was smiling.

Beth was positively marinating in impatience to talk to her. Though she hadn't seen the guy at the door slip closer to the pool to talk to Lily even once, she seemed to have received the message that Beth and Blake weren't traditional challengers. She swam over to the ledge closest to where they sat and Beth scrambled up to meet her. She only remembered to tread carefully a few hurried steps in. She wasn't really interested in wiping out spectacularly in front of her.

Lily gave her a beaming smile that Beth mirrored back at once. It was the exhausted yet energized, joy-saturated look of someone who lived to chase the water and got to spend all day in it. "Hello there!" Lily said, hanging onto the ledge with one bony hand and drifting her other through the pool with tiny, calculated movements to steady herself. "What can I do for you?"

"I'm Beth," Beth said, stooping down so they were more level. "First off, I'm so stoked to meet you! Childhood dream."

It had been a careful, calculated gamble. Beth and Blake had only rudimentary disguises—temporary extensions in Beth's hair that made her look more of a dirty blonde than a true brunette and the like. They'd decided to give their real first names to try to get these talks off on the right foot, though Beth obviously wasn't going to go the extra mile and ID herself as Beth Larson from Celadon, Fugitive Extraordinaire.

No recognition or misgivings crossed Lily's face. It was just a pleased, flattered smile, still so genuine after what had to be the ten thousandth greeting like this she'd heard. "Thank you, dear." There was the tiniest pause, and after Lily gave her a serious, thoughtful assessment, the older woman suddenly asked, "Would you like to come in for a swim?"

" _Yes_ ," Beth said at once, aware she didn't have her suit on under her clothes but not caring. Her backpack had some changes of clothing, and that was good enough. From behind her, Blake coughed out a laugh.

"Want me to, I don't know. Hold your phone for you?" he asked, and Beth stopped in the process of kicking off her shoes.

"This is why I keep him around," Beth told Lily in a conspiratorial aside, and the Gym Leader laughed aloud in a way that made Beth's face split into a grin so wide it hurt.

With her phone safely in Blake's pocket and her hoodie in his lap, Beth eased herself into the cool water and felt all the tension leave her body. A little late, she saw Lily giving her a knowing smile, which Beth returned a little sheepishly. "I've got a pretty good eye for kindred spirits," Lily explained.

Beth pressed her palms together in a prayer and bowed. "Thank you for sharing your temple with me." Lily pretended to wave a blessing over Beth and the two women laughed again while Blake sighed and shook his head. He was folded down into a slouchy, cross-legged pretzel at the poolside, but wore a small smile.

For a moment, Beth was able to pretend. She floated alongside Lily, talking, laughing, grinning over at Blake whenever her friend interjected with some kind of off-color comment. It was nice, even if she knew perfectly well there was no way it could last.

Lily let them shoot the breeze for a few moments, but Beth caught it again when the older woman saw right through her. She still smiled, but there was something else in her eyes, too—and Beth understood she was fooling no one.

"I get the feeling," Lily began, quietly, hand drifting an unconcerned motion through the water, "That you aren't here just to swim and chat?"

Beth's smile soured just a touch on her face. She could feel the dash of wistful discomfort color it. "You're right," she said, the words coming out on a sigh. "We're here to discuss some pretty serious matters and…" she lowered her voice, not so much as to alarm, but enough that she could be certain no one lingering near the entryway could make out specific words. "Discretion is going to be absolutely key. Is that alright?"

Lily nodded, still wearing her smile as well, but Beth noted that it was tinged with undeniable worry now. Disheartened by the new flavors in their formerly easy understanding, Beth launched in to get it over with.

She'd practiced this speech, with Victoria, with Gav, with Kaylee. She'd rattled it off under her breath to Blake while they walked through the city toward the Gym. It came out fine now, a kind of muscle memory dance routine, but she detected the waver in her voice and caught herself executing strange, arbitrary hand motions under the water. The more aware she became of her own body, the more her face heated up, even though she was up to her shoulders in the cool water.

She started with the Aggro Devices, which had felt like the best place to begin with Lily. It was a little less terrifying than the Alpha Gene research and Factor A, or the Returner tech and whatever alterations had been made to the Masterball that had turned Venusaur savage. The concepts were easier to talk about, quick to grasp, and a way to test the water (which Beth felt like she was doing both literally and metaphorically now).

Lily was gracious and understanding. She let her speak, nodding slowly, not interjecting too often with throw-away verbalization like "uh-huh" and "go on?" She was a Grade A active listener and it was all that was keeping Beth semi-sane while she rattled her way through her explanation of only one fifth of their project, trying desperately not to derail her train of thought.

When she paused, knowing the older woman had to have unasked questions, Lily remained quiet for a moment to process. Beth focused on catching her breath, fighting the urge to rest a hand over her beating heart. She didn't want to look at Blake, or show in any other external way how wrung out she was from only a few minutes of explanation.

"I think there may be one in the north," Lily said, and Beth was so floored she was halfway through a jawdrop before she clamped her mouth shut again. Lily hadn't seen, though. Her brows were furrowed and she was looking off to the side, through the clear, calm water of the pool. "All of the Pokémon behaviors you just described… it fits. Of course, I wouldn't be able to say for certain, not without knowing more… but my Gym Aides have been investigating. What they report matches what you just told me."

Beth felt like reeling. She desperately fought back a childlike, insecure, _you really believe me?_ Instead she cleared her throat. "It's—it could be. Like you, I wouldn't be able to confirm until I knew more. Um," she began, unable to prune out all of the stammering non-words from her speech patterns right now. "It's, just that these devices are really only about a fifth of what we've discovered. There's… a lot more. A lot more that I really don't think we should discuss here, where anyone can come in to challenge you."

Lily nodded, perfectly accepting, and when she fixed earnest, worried eyes on Beth's face, a reaction Beth had not expected curled bitter and unwelcome in her gut. It was dark and cloudy and stale, and so unfamiliar she almost didn't recognize it.

"I naturally would like to hear it all. And I'm very grateful you've been brave enough to come forward to me. I know that…" Lily broke off with a tiny, _hmm_. "That… not all of my… contemporaries are as welcoming to this sort of cold-call. But of course, I can see where you and your team have had to exercise extreme caution." Lily lifted a bony wrist and checked the face of a too-large rubber watch that hung down over her pulse. "I close the doors at 6, and I always stay back to help my Junior Aides tidy up. I should be dressed in real-person clothes and ready outside the doors say, seven? Would you two be available to come by for dinner?"

Beth imagined herself breaking into a relieved, shaky grin, deflating and slumping and saying, _Um, do Staryu have five points!?_ She could so easily picture Lily and her laughing, the frigid, frightened ice breaking between them again. Instead, her voice stuck in her throat and Lily glanced up at her from her watch when Beth didn't answer right away.

Once again, the Gym Leader read Beth as easily as a tide chart. "In fact," she said, paddling to the edge and easily hoisting herself out. "I'll get some of this started now. Think on it, I'm going to find my Aides and let them know to start cleanup of all nonessential equipment a little early." She smiled at Beth and Blake, added, "Man of few words?" to him and received a comical grunt in reply. Lily's soft chuckles sounded farther and farther away as she departed, leaving them to regroup without another word to draw attention to it.

"Beth?" Blake asked, and the lack of quippy preamble or sarcasm told Beth how strange she must be acting.

"I want to believe her," she blurted out, goosebumps racing up and down her arms. The temperature of the water hadn't changed, but Beth had. It was colder here now; when had that happened?

Blake shifted in her peripheral vision, leaning farther over his knees to get closer to where she stood in the water. "You don't?" His tones were more subtle than most people's, but she could read the surprise there just fine.

"I…" Beth began, and to her horror she felt heat rise in her throat even while her skin still froze against the warmth around her. "I don't think I do." Her voice didn't break, but it threatened to.

Beth waited for the rapid-fire, _why,_ or _what part tipped you off,_ or _let's get out of here then._ Instead Blake's silence stretched and Beth had to count her breaths to keep from showing how rattled she was. It was stupid—and knowing it was stupid just made it worse. They came here to recruit a Gym Leader, and here was one ready to listen, wanting to help, _inviting them over for dinner_ so they could discuss more. Yet that was exactly the problem, and suddenly Beth couldn't find her trusting spirit in the rubble of all the destruction they'd endured.

"That's my job, you know."

Beth turned to glance at Blake, more out of bewilderment than a conscious decision to do so. She couldn't hide the turmoil at a boiling point on her face anymore, so she didn't bother. Her confusion asked her question for her, and he elaborated.

"Come on," Blake said. "Let's do this the right way, don't reverse roles on me." He cleared his throat as if preparing to read off a script. "Well, obviously, she's in on it."

Beth didn't follow for another faltering few seconds, but then understanding cracked through the shaky haze in her brain. She swallowed, then swallowed again, and took a slow breath before replying. "But if she was in on it… well, she'd want us to never guess it. Why give in so easily? Isn't that the most suspicious move of all?"

Blake waggled his eyebrows at her, an expression she adored for how ridiculous it looked when no other part of his face budged at all. "That's what she _wants_ us to think."

Beth bit her lip to try to stifle the complicated, painful smile that was struggling against its chains, but she knew already she'd lose. "We could go round and round in circles like this forever, you know. 'That's what she wants us to think. But no, she _knows_ that, so she planned for it! So it's the _opposite_ of the opposite of what we expect! No, wait…'" Beth pulled a confused, dumbfounded expression complete with crossed eyes and Blake snorted.

"Okay. Well, why _should_ we believe her, then?" he asked, shifting to lean his elbow on one of his knees, propping his chin up in his hand.

"Armstrong trusts her," Beth pointed out, facing Blake in full now, wading slowly over to get closer to the edge.

"Armstrong could be wrong," he fired back, and Beth forgot to struggle with the answer. Her intuition punched the button and her honest feelings came out of her mouth, unedited.

"He could be. But he's known Lily almost all his life. He, Zo, Jo and the Yawa sisters pretty much grew up together in the Gym circuit as Junior Aides, then Gym Aides, and finally Leaders themselves. If we can't trust his word… then we can't trust _anyone,_ and we have to start somewhere. We've got to take a leap of faith." She sucked in a breath, not done but not sure where she was going, either. "And—I have a feeling about her." Blake opened his mouth, one eyebrow raised, but Beth smiled and lifted a hand to silence him. "It's not just because she's a Water trainer." He shut his mouth. "Even though I'm scared, and even though we've been wrong before? I believe her."

She waited for Blake's counter-serve, ready, almost eager to continue this talk, but Blake was quiet. Beth quirked an eyebrow at him and he shrugged.

"What? You convinced me. To be frank, I was convinced before we even started this talk, but I'd get fired from my job as Devil's Advocate if I didn't clock in my hours." Beth snorted and splashed water at his jeans, which he dodged. "The severance package isn't that great, I hear." Her next splash hit home, and when Lily returned Blake was almost as wet as if he'd been in the actual pool, and Beth was able to gratefully accept her gracious offer for dinner.

* * *

Beth was full to the brim with a sleepy, warm, satisfied good will by the time Blake and she bid Lily a fond farewell and headed out into the gathering twilight of a balmy Cerulean night. Lily had fed them fit to burst and the conversation had drifted from more serious talk into other earnest and effortless discussions. True to form, Blake had been the quietest one at the table, but Lily apparently took very well to his dry, bizarre sense of humor. More than once he'd made the older woman mop at her eyes and shake her head over some weird, dark aside. Beth couldn't be 100% sure, but she privately wondered if Blake was a bit pleased at that. He talked a big talk about treating everyone exactly the same, and while that was true, she knew she for one would be proud and preening if she'd made a famous Gym Leader laugh as much as Lily had tonight.

Blake sent off the requisite "don't send a rescue team, we're still alive" messages to their group, and Beth pulled her phone out to check what she'd missed during the talk. There was a reply from Kaylee, rather lengthy but delivered in much calmer and happier spirits than she'd left her best friend in. Beth smiled warmly down at the message, skimming it and flagging it unread again so she wouldn't forget to answer it later.

Blake and she didn't even need to speak to come to the silent decision to walk around a little bit longer. They'd be able to teleport back to Pewter any time now, having successfully recruited Lily to their cause. Tim's Jynx cut their travel time down to mere seconds, and Beth felt a smile flit across her face again at the knowledge that she (even temporarily) had a kick-ass and powerful Ice-type at her belt.

Cerulean didn't have a nightlife as insane and busy as Saffron's or Celadon's, but there was still the safe, good-weather culture of jogging or walking Pokémon late into the evening. Passersby nodded to Beth and Blake, traded _hellos_ or _good evenings_ with them, and Beth beamed at them all, taking shameless joy in those simple and sorely missed social niceties. She had no opportunity at all for them at Tim's mother's place, cooped up as they were, and Beth privately wished they had encountered the need to extend their stay here for even just one night. It was perfection, starry-skied and breezy and warm.

Beth shifted them down the road that led to the Gym and Blake groaned, good-natured and teasing. She nudged him and he nudged her back. When the structure rose in the distance Beth grinned.

Sometime in the last several years the city had decided to add the Dewgong back in a different incarnation. They hadn't harkened back to the enormous plaster statue of the Pokémon that had once perched like a gargoyle upon the domed roof, but there was a stylized outline of one embossed over the doors now in sleek platinum. "Merging the old and the new," Beth said, appraising it languidly now that they had no deadline to observe.

"Do you need a quote for your trendy architecture blog?" Blake asked with faux seriousness. Beth swatted him but Blake lifted his hand as if he was waving off a blushing protest and not physical assault. "No, no. I'll do my part to support your dream. 'The Cerulean Gym went from hideous to passable and has come full circle back to mildly fugly.'"

Beth feigned deep affront and let her jaw drop. "Them's be fighting words! And WTF," she spelled each letter out verbally, "it's just the addition of a Dewgong that made it 'mildly fugly' again? What have you got against Dewgongs?"

"They're the worst," Blake deadpanned, and Beth and he let that heated debate carry them all the way around the building and across the street into the parking lot of a massive park.

Beth thought it would be Kaylee or Victoria when her phone buzzed against her collarbone. She dug it out and very nearly accepted the call without even looking, but when Rei's codename registered she felt her face fall. The nerves that had been so blissfully banished returned full strength to buzz in her chest, and Blake caught sight of her face before she was able to master her expression. Beth swallowed, feigned indifference the best she could, and let the call go to voicemail.

Heat traveled up the back of her neck. It was beyond weird, knowing Blake was probably wondering who that was, and then wondering why she hadn't just announced it aloud. A text buzzed through on her phone next and Beth bit back a groan.

Blake breathed out a slow, even sigh. "You gonna explain what that was?"

Beth winced, but managed to do it on the side of her face that Blake couldn't see. "It was…" She cleared her throat, well aware that _nothing_ was the worst answer in the history of answers. "Just Rei," she said, a little weakly, a blank reel of excuses flashing intimidatingly across her brain. It occurred to her, dimly, that it was probably blank because the idea of lying to Blake was nearly as reprehensible to her now as lying to Victoria.

"Uh-huh," Blake said, voice flat as ever but touched with a little concern. "What's he want?"

Beth scrunched up her face but checked her phone, both not wanting to know and also wanting to get the discovery over with. It looked like a wall of text again, and it started with, _okay, so you're ignoring me again, why can't we move past this?_ Beth grimaced, glanced up at Blake, and saw that he'd seen the screen. His expression was carefully and deliberately blank. She could tell that kind of blankness apart from genuine boredom and lack of interest now.

"That seems… complicated," Blake started, carefully. Beth smiled at him, awkward but also a little amused. He was proceeding like a man tiptoeing on explosives.

"It is," she admitted freely, even though she didn't know how to proceed here, either. Blake and she joked, teased and bantered. They didn't really do the heavy discussion thing—or, they'd only done it a handful of times, like when Beth had steamrolled her way through the whole _they're good scars_ nightmare. "He… wants to help the group. Which I fully get. I mean, Ida…" she trailed off, and Blake nodded to show he was tracking. "So, he… wants to be involved and I can't for the life of me figure out _how_ to let him be involved but not _involved-_ involved _._ Ugh."

"No, I copy," Blake said, slipping his hands into his pockets. Beth shot him a grateful, tired smile.

The next part was considerably harder to talk about, and she wound up mostly telling it to her shoes. "And… well. He wants to talk about us. Him and me, I mean. And I do… not. Um, want to go there."

Blake mulled that over in silence for a while, and Beth let the quiet stretch, trying not to feel intimidated by it. From a few roads down some children screamed out laughter and playful taunts. A Pokémon barked from the distance in another direction.

"So… what are you going to do?" Blake finally asked.

Beth laughed breathily. "I have no idea."

"You look like you feel bad, somehow."

That stopped Beth short, and she frowned up at Blake, trying to figure out if that was a joke that had somehow gone over her head. But Blake looked more perplexed than anything as he peered down at her, walking as slowly as she was now.

"Of—of _course_ I feel bad," Beth said, trying not to sound as confused and stunned as she was. She failed.

Blake's frown deepened, and Beth pictured the disconnect visually, one person going for a handshake and the other for a high five. "Why?"

Suddenly faced with having to explain something she was so sure had been obvious, Beth floundered. "It's—it's just, he's… he's trying so hard, you know? He's confused. He wants to help and doesn't get why I'm not letting him. And beyond that? We ended so—so _badly_ and I was never able to be honest with him throughout the whole thing, not even once. He was a jerk in the end, yeah, but who could blame him?"

Blake's replies were snap-quick. "Victoria. Kaylee. Any sane person." He paused. "Me."

Beth bit her lip hard and fought back a painful prickling in her throat. The tiniest smile twitched at her mouth, but she wore a distressed frown across the rest of her face. "It's really not his fault."

Blake sighed heavily and scrubbed a hand across his face. "Course it's not. He didn't ask for any of this to happen. But that doesn't matter. Bottom line is that you deserved to be treated a hell of a lot better than he treated you… and while I'm not saying to hold it over his head forever, just—" He closed his eyes and pressed his knuckles into his temple, delivering the rest of it like that. "Don't ever forget it, either. He knew there was something going on that was bigger than him. He _knew_ you were in danger. Yeah, he got frustrated, and it was because he was scared and confused. But there were any number of ways he could have handled that, and he picked virtually the worst one. Just bear that in mind; he's the kind of person who lets his feelings dictate what he does, even when he _knows_ on some level he's wrong. That's…" Blake finally opened his eyes again, like he was emerging with difficulty from the part of his brain where all these words lived. "That's a dangerous kind of person to trust."

Beth had been honestly spellbound by what had to be the most Blake had ever spoken about a serious topic in front of her, but snapped out of it the best she could. A wan smile cracked out over her face. "Sounds like half our group…" she mumbled.

Blake smirked. "Yeah, okay, I'll give you that. But they're getting better."

Beth smiled softly, and as if on cue the phone still in her hand buzzed again. It was another call coming through.

Shame prickled across Beth's scalp. She didn't know what to do with her hands all of the sudden, and half-executed a number of gestures. She almost brought the phone up to look at it, even though she knew it was Rei. Then she twitched her hand down to shove it into her pants pocket, as if she could somehow entirely muffle the buzzing sound against her leg. She moved to run her hands through her hair or wrap her arms around herself in a go-to gesture of insecurity. Then she settled for half-clenching her hands into fists and averting her eyes from Blake while the phone finished three more agonizing rings.

Blake was silent for a long moment, but Beth somehow knew that it wasn't because he felt awkward. Rather, he likely didn't know what to say, and not wanting to botch it up, was taking his time figuring it out. Understanding the silence didn't make it easier to bear, though.

When Blake finally did speak, his voice was smooth and casual. "Okay, so, let's brainstorm." He paused almost immediately, though. "Although I recognize I'm doing that thing girls say they hate. That thing where guys try to graph and step-by-step action plan their bad moods away."

Beth shook her head at once. "No, it's fine. If you've got any advice I'd love to hear it by this point." She fought the urge to rub her hands across her face. "Heaven knows I'm not making any headway on my own."

"Well, it's a shitty situation," Blake said, tossing up a shrug. "So let's start with the fact that he wants to be involved. Would you say that's his primary beef?"

"Seventy-five percent of the beef," Beth reasoned, giving Blake a tiny, wry smile. "Maybe eighty."

"That's a considerable amount of the beef," Blake returned lightly, and Beth's smile grew a little. "And for obvious reasons, we can't exactly pull him into the _inner sanctum_ and teach him the _secret handshake_ and hand him a copy of our _company policy_ the way he wants us to." He inflected each phrase with spooky, heavy meaning.

Beth's smile grew more and she bit her lip to try to contain it, still feeling guilty and like she didn't deserve to be amused right now. "That is correct."

"And, though I don't know the guy very well, stands to reason he's not the sort of fellow who'd be content doing research for us if you asked him to."

Beth chuckled softly, more of a fluttering of breath than a sound, and when she said "nope," she popped her lips on the "p" sound.

"Right then," Blake said. "So what do you think he imagines when he asks you if he can join?"

Beth frowned. "I guess he probably…" She trailed off, then closed her eyes to better empathize with her first boyfriend. "He probably imagines a lot of running and fighting and daring escapades. Um… danger," she noted. "I'm sure he wants to be in on what he imagines is a ton of danger. Like, all the time."

"Damn," said Blake. " _All_ the time? But when would we schedule in our in-fighting and brooding and not knowing what to do?"

A sharp laugh escaped Beth and she clapped her hand over her mouth as it echoed across the adjacent park. "Maybe I should tell him that," she guessed, smirking hard. "Though I don't know if he'd believe me. He'd probably just think I was trying to get rid of him."

"Well, we kind of _are,_ in a way," Blake reasoned. "So, he doesn't want the boring bits, but he wants to feel effective. Hmm." He shoved his hands into his pockets and kicked at a bit of loose parking lot gravel. "Hmm, hmm, hmm."

"Hmm?" Beth intoned with a different inflection, and Blake responded with " _hmm,_ " much lower, like they were having a conversation with sounds and not words.

"Wilbur," he said out of nowhere. Beth turned to him, but he didn't leave her hanging with his non-sequitur. "Way I see it, Wilbur is our ally and he probably has need of folks he can trust. He's got Alan Zachariah and by this point probably one or two cops he feels he can trust. But I guarantee you either Wilbur or AZ have got more need of an eager new recruit than any of us do."

Beth opened her mouth to reply but closed it, not actually sure what she was going to say. She mulled the flavor of that over in her mind. Rei, working with Wilbur and Alan Zachariah: would that work? He had a violent distrust of the police and a distaste for law enforcement in general, but working closely with Wilbur, who damn near topped the list of most honorable and honest men Beth had ever met, could be objectively good for him. What was more, she couldn't imagine Wilbur telling someone like Rei that he was better off sitting at home and twiddling his thumbs. Wilbur was a man of action and daring, and especially if he knew what kind of stakes Rei had in this, the older man would likely go out of his way to utilize him rather than leave him on the bench.

"That…" Beth started, her voice thoughtful but her smile slowly slipping back into place, "that could _work,_ Blake."

"Once in a great while my brain produces something that's not a random fact or an inappropriately timed joke," he said bravely.

Beth turned to him, beaming now, and had to fight back her knee-jerk urge to hug anyone who gave her something of value, be it material or intangible. A part of her couldn't quite bring herself to do that with Blake right now. "It's _brilliant,_ " she said. "He's got to take it, and if he doesn't—well, I'll know then that I did at least try to meet him halfway. Maybe I won't feel—" She stopped then, stumbling over the rest of her words, but she knew leaving the sentence unfinished would be more awkward now than if she just barreled through it. "Feel so—much like a bad person." She frowned, uncomfortable, feeling like she was beating a dead horse and worse, that Blake might think she was fishing for pity. She cleared her throat, shrugged one shoulder, and hurriedly added, "I mean—just, objectively, I know I'm not. And everything you said? It's true, and it's what Victoria's been saying, and Kaylee, and—"

"Beth," Blake said, cutting off her stammering explanation.

Beth stopped, but couldn't bring herself to look at Blake. Or, she couldn't until his hand touched down briefly beneath her chin, providing the suggestion of movement she needed. She turned and focused back on him. The gesture wasn't a soft, slow or loving one, more matter-of-fact than anything else. It wasn't an excuse for him to touch her, but the quickest way for him to get her attention. It left nothing up for interpretation, and for that Beth was blindingly grateful, even if the friendly contact made her face feel unfortunately hot.

"You're amazing." She felt her eyes widen, felt the heat rush into her cheeks, but it was merely a byproduct of her absolute, humbling shock. "You're brilliant, you're one of the most powerful trainers in our group, and you manage this all _without_ being a heartless cynic like me. You know how hard that is?"

Her phone buzzed again but Beth had never had an easier time ignoring it. Blake never looked away from her, not once, and because of that Beth felt she couldn't look away from him either. It was like a contest, and during it she got the impression if she blinked first she'd lose. Lose what, though? That remained to be seen.

"Never sell yourself short. Trust yourself, like we trust you. In the end, you'll make the right decision, and we'll back you up every step of the way."

The hard lump that had formed in her throat only three words in worsened, heated like fire, and brought on not the threat of tears, but the promise of them. She sucked in a ragged, broken breath, and adored Blake fiercely when he muttered, "oh boy," low under his breath and made all that mounting tension burst out of her in a gut-punch of a laugh.

"You're not heartless," she stammered out, wiping the inside of her wrist against her eye.

Blake groaned, long and dramatic, and threw his arms in the air. "See? All that and your takeaway was 'better make sure Blake is nicer to himself!'" He shook his head and gave her a completely not serious disgusted look. "You give me diabetes."

Beth failed completely at stifling her giggles, and even when a voicemail pinged through on her phone it didn't dent the strange, warm bubble of golden light that seemed to exist inside her now. Blake jerked his chin at the park and lifted his eyebrows. "I'm gonna make myself scarce for a bit, okay?" He rolled his shoulder, earning himself a loud crack. "Call me when you need me."

It took Beth a second to realize it. He'd read her better than she'd read herself. His tactical retreat wasn't a demand for her to finally call Rei—it was a response to some unspoken cue she hadn't even known she was telegraphing. For Beth _had_ made up her mind, and somehow he'd seen it. She watched Blake's tall, lean form melt off into the shadows between two streetlights, and let herself have a long, quiet moment to do nothing but think and feel.

Then she pulled out her phone, unlocked her screen, and hit Rei's name.


	16. Bend the Rules :Victoria:

Pokémon Azure

Chapter 16: Bend the Rules

(Victoria Larson)

 _if he was even a little bit of an ass to you, i'm talking like even .0001% an ass, i will end him_

 _he wasn't, i swear_

 _what did you tell him?_

 _i… THINK i told him no. about us, i mean. i told him about w and he wants to get in touch so that's good._

 _what do you mean you 'think' you told him no_

 _i just told him i can't go there. not with everything that's going on. that it means a lot to me, him being willing to meet me halfway but i'm not willing to just pick up where we left off_

 _okay i read and reread that like 50 times and i am pretty sure he will read that as a 'no for now.' and that's fine, if it's a 'no for now.' just be sure that you're ok with the fact that that's the answer you gave and how it might be interpreted._

Victoria sighed, stowed her phone in her pocket and reached up for her head.

"Wig," Amaris said.

"Shit," Victoria said. Her hand redirected partway and she pinched the bridge of her nose instead. "Thanks." She'd been touching the thing all morning, getting her fingers tangled in the lifeless strands, however realistic they looked.

They'd arrived in Celadon barely half an hour ago, and she'd nearly dismantled her disguise at least a dozen times. The last time their group had been to The Green Machine, as the locals called it, they'd been in the heart of the bustling commercial district. It had been all shoppers racing back and forth from store to store, slightly inebriated businessmen and women tromping back to their hotels and bewildered, starry-eyed tourists packing the sidewalks and blocking traffic. That was what most people pictured when they imagined Celadon City.

It was also nothing at all like the part of the city that Victoria had spent the better part of her childhood growing up in. Her Celadon was remarkably normal. If any non-native to the area had been suddenly dropped into her childhood neighborhood blindfolded, then unmasked and made to guess where in Kanto they'd landed, she was sure the estimations would include: residential Pewter, southern Cerulean, Viridian, or maybe even the outskirts of Vermillion.

Amaris and she were walking through areas just like that now. Victoria still knew the way to the Celadon Gym, even though she'd never been inside to challenge the leaders in an official capacity. She vaguely recalled a field trip inside the lobby area back in her primary school days, but she wondered how different the building would seem now that she wasn't three feet tall.

The area that housed the Gym district couldn't be more different from the commercial district. Though the air quality couldn't be completely saved, the skies were clearer here, and the fat, red sun that she always saw rising during a city morning was a little less filtered through pollution out here. It was still an unnatural blend between its normal shade and a bloody carmine, but that only made the picturesque walk to the Gym more beautiful.

As odd a traveling partner as Amaris made, she was grateful for one thing. He was an early riser. Because of his natural inclinations and her motivation to get the job done, they'd breakfasted, checked their bags one last time and teleported in to their inconspicuous drop point at the crack of dawn. Now, at barely seven o'clock, they were ready to hit up the Gym the second the doors opened. Victoria was hopeful that because it was an innocuous Thursday morning they would be the only ones waiting.

They emerged from the wide path framed by copses of trees, and Victoria was pleased to note that she was correct. The outside of the Gym was still that awful, gargantuan Gloom. The domed roof sported a huge set of white stairs leading up to the double doors, with neat little square and conical hedges hugging the perimeter outside.

They framed, however, the most beautiful gardens Victoria could ever imagine. A low, hazy mist clung to the grounds and the chemical-burnt lighting that she'd just attributed to pollutants not a moment ago now served to lend breathtaking splendor to the colors. The whole world was cast in peachy, orange sherbet light, with brighter golds against the whites of the building, each green plant or violet flower kissed by absolute warmth.

The simple beauty laid out before her tightened her throat in a completely unexpected way. She'd known she was about to lay eyes on something gorgeous, but somehow this time it stripped her bare. This right here was why she was a Grass trainer. The idea behind it—life, renewal, slow and steady determination, power blended with calm, the overlooked backbone of everything that breathed on the planet. It always prevailed in the end, and Victoria breathed quietly to try to overcome this bizarre emotional reaction.

If Amaris noticed her moment of silence to get her bearings, he didn't comment. They stood in silence, Victoria entering an almost meditative state. When he finally spoke up, it was purely to deal with logistics. "I don't really feel the need to go in there. I'm the only one of the Initiates who actually earned the Rainbow Badge. But if you want me to come in, I will."

Victoria fought off an eye roll, knowing that Amaris didn't mean to imply he was offering a sacrifice for the sake of her delicate nerves. It was something she would have been bothered by in her younger years: clumsy wording and unintentional implications. She might have caught them and needled. Now they were a passing blip of amusement on her radar. "No, I think I can handle myself," she said, smiling just a little and giving him a sidelong look.

"You have the blank text up on your phone?" he asked, and she swiped her screen and showed him. It was a good system—a silent SOS, should it be needed. The blank text meant "things are going south but I don't need evac/backup just yet." Any one of them could slip their hand into their pocket and calmly hit "send" on the message to notify their partner or whole team of the situation. It was more subtle than placing a call, since in a quiet room the sound of a phone dialing in a pocket might be just loud enough to be heard. The speed-dialing of an actual call was reserved for when things had completely fallen apart and stealth was no longer a concern.

"Alright," Amaris said, nodding and turning to look out across the grounds. "I won't go far."

Victoria privately felt he could go anywhere he wanted. Alakazam was with him and that meant he had a "return to Victoria's last coordinates" card preloaded in his deck. Her hand reached up for her hair again, then closed into a fist before she could touch it. She instead reached for the door handles of the Celadon City Gym to push her way inside.

At once she was hit by a wave of wet air. She sucked in a breath and blew it out with a _whooo_ sound, hating the way the heat prickled against her scalp, trapped by the wig. It was a greenhouse in here, one a lot more complex and high-tech than the Broome's. Victoria peered skyward where the domed ceiling showed a multicolor view of the sky, each slice cut in red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet. Colorful clouds passed from one sliver to the next, shifting hues as they went. She lifted her arm and smiled vaguely as half of her skin went from bloody scarlet to a peppier orange, bisected with a perfect line.

The entire place was a canopy of plants, vines growing up what looked like metal scaffolding built into the structure of the building. A massive oak tree took up a sizable chunk of the wall in the "green" section of the pie slice, its thick limbs an explosion of crisscrossing cover. Tall trees bunched together in stands and massive hedges created perfectly maintained maze walls—from what she could see, anyway. An intricately landscaped group of bougainvillea created the entrance of the maze. Victoria only spotted the sign near it because it was done in construction vest lime green that clashed with the red hue all around it.

 _STAY ON PATH_

Victoria frowned at the sign, wondering what the challenge of this Gym was. A garden maze seemed like a pleasant Sunday afternoon pastime, not a hurdle to be overcome before a trainer had the right to challenge the Gym Leaders. Privately wondering if she was about to get herself devoured by a man-sized flytrap, Victoria headed into the maze.

She wasn't above cheating, but a few things stopped her from mapping out her progress on her phone. For one, she didn't want to be lost in a drawing program and miss the chance to send an SOS to Amaris. For another, she wasn't sure if that would be frowned upon, because she also didn't put it past the Gym Leaders to be watching her even now.

Victoria explored everything, systematically picking her way through each corridor and mentally mapping each dead end. A careful forty-five minutes later she was sure she knew the way to the heart of the maze, where she was certain the Gym Leaders were lying in wait.

When her efforts ended with her staring at a bunch of periwinkle hyacinth growing out of a pot held snug in a very solid leafy wall, she didn't understand. Where had she taken the wrong turn?

Her phone buzzed against her leg and she tugged it out. Amaris had to be annoyed if he was breaking his pattern of impeccable text grammar and had deigned to use two question marks in a row. _What on earth are you doing in there?_

Victoria glared at her phone. _trying to find the goddamn gym leaders._ She stowed it back in her pocket and pushed on. She redoubled her efforts, backtracking, trying again, and hitting that same hyacinth three more times. Sweat poured down her neck and all she wanted to do was tear the wig off and fling it.

Somewhere around the third circuit of her maze circle of failure, Victoria realized something troubling. Unless she was very much mistaken there was a portion of the maze she wasn't accessing at all, no matter how many turns she took. She'd yet to make it to the wall where the towering tree stood as if taunting her. By all logical estimation the center of the maze should have been the arena, but apparently it wasn't. It was a hyacinth, and Victoria was starting to hate it.

Amaris buzzed her again, she snapped back via text, and finally cracked. She pulled a ball off her belt and Ivysaur materialized by her feet. He peered up at once to blink, catlike, at the sun streaming through the bright yellow section of their glass skylight.

Victoria cleared her throat. "I know this is a little unorthodox," she told Ivysaur, "But I think I need your help getting through this maze. Would you say you're a good tracker?" Ivysaur looked at her, his expression remote but perhaps a bit doubtful. He was still hard to read, quiet and reserved. She gritted her teeth, gathered up her resolve, and gave him a tight-lipped, hopefully semi-encouraging smile. "Well, let's give it a shot."

Ivysaur, to her relief, proved himself resourceful and clever. He shot out shiny dark Razor Leaves as they went, marking the path they took. Victoria tried a new route based on what she recognized to be errors in her earlier pathfinding, and was so full of confidence by the time they had wound their way through the better part of the maze that the hyacinth felt like a slap in the face when it appeared.

"What… the hell," she said, her breath escaping on a reedy, haggard sigh. "What is going on?"

Ivysaur looked up at her, clear confusion on his face, and shook his head. It was nice, in a way, being united with him in this one regard: frustrated bewilderment. But no sooner had Victoria generated the thought than Ivysaur hooded his eyes as if something had pulled him out of the mood. He looked ahead, soldier-like, and awaited his next orders.

Victoria scrubbed her face. Her hands came away slick with sweat and she rubbed her palms on her cargo shorts. She could handle being trapped in a Gym Leader maze, or feeling like she was torturing her adopted Pokémon with her presence, but not both at the same time. Victoria took a seat, deciding that a break was in order.

"Well, clearly we know it's not your fault we're stuck, since I was stuck before I let you out." Ivysaur didn't make any sign that he'd heard, and Victoria fought the urge to give up then and there. "It was a good idea. With the Razor Leaves. If only we could cut this whole maze down, huh?"

It was a tempting idea, actually. Yet her mind flashed back to the bright green, authoritative sign at the entrance of the maze. Stay on path.

Well, this vigilante project excepted, that was one thing Victoria was very good at. She was a rule-follower, and she wasn't about to get on Jo and Zo's bad side by wrecking their Gym.

A tiny frown creased her brow and it took Victoria a second to figure out why. Gav's face flashed in her mind's eye, though in her recollection he was younger, the fresh-faced sixteen-year-old who had eyes older than anyone she'd ever met. _Sometimes you have to bend the rules,_ he'd said.

She'd judged him hard, then she'd been wrong, and then she'd been sorry. After that she'd been grateful she'd been wrong.

Victoria stood and stared at the hyacinth. A bizarre, un-Victoria-ish idea bloomed in her mind.

"Ivysaur," she said. He stood at once, recognizing the beginning of a command. "Do me a favor and cut through here."

Ivysaur hesitated, and after a moment turned slowly to look at her over his shoulder. He could be expressive when he wanted to be, and now his red eyes showed clear skepticism. _Did the heat get to you?_ his face seemed to say, and Victoria almost laughed.

"Trust me, I know what I'm doing." _Or I think I do, anyway._

Ivysaur quirked an eyebrow, twitched his body in a little shrug, and lunged forward.

To be frank, Victoria had expected his method to involve a lot of wasted razor leaves, a frustratingly long hack job and some follow-up wrenching and tearing with his vines. What happened instead was a calculated, swift slash with his vines. Leaves fell away in a wild rush, entire boughs cracked under the slicing motion, and in three short whacks he hacked his way through the hedge that had been blocking their way.

Victoria's eyebrows arched under her itchy, fake bangs. "You wouldn't happen to know Cut, would you?" she asked him, her tone conversational.

Ivysaur turned to peer at her over his shoulder again, and though his expression was a flavor of remote again she thought—and she could be wrong—that she detected a trace of pride.

"Excellent," Victoria said, fighting back a laugh very poorly. All three syllables of the word were colored with it. "Perfect. Let's go, then. Straight on that way." She gestured with gusto at the next row of hedges not ten feet away.

Ivysaur glanced at her again as if making sure she was really giving him permission to destroy this place and wasn't merely out of her mind. In a surge of sudden, childlike abandon, Victoria rushed through the opening he'd made in the hateful hyacinth-laced bush and ran straight to the next blockade. Her hands hit the solid wall of hedge and she ripped and tore at it, grinning broadly.

It didn't take long for Ivysaur to get the message. He tugged her back with one vine wrapped around her forearm, and Victoria stepped aside so he could slash mightily at the massive, leafy obstacle.

Victoria couldn't help but laugh. Her sheer relief at making some headway (even if it was through wanton destruction) and her delight at watching Ivysaur slowly begin to cut loose bubbled up inside her until it couldn't be contained. She soon turned it into a game, pointing at the most challenging bits of foliage to cut through rather than letting him take the easy way out, or setting up a limited parameter for him to work in. He had to cut through hedges in a star-shaped pattern, or could only make a thin sliver of a doorway for them to pass through.

Ivysaur rose to every test, red eyes focused and gleaming, and once or twice he even barked out what Victoria swore was a little laugh of triumph when he overcame a tricky one.

She was so wrapped up in their game that when his final slash cut through a series of interlocking branches and dumped them out into a larger grassy area she wasn't expecting it. They staggered out into a field half-shielded by the boughs of the large tree, bathed in green-filtered light. She'd almost forgotten that the whole point of all this fun was to get to Jo and Zo.

And get to Jo and Zo they had. Victoria was suddenly staring at the identical twins who had run the Celadon Gym for decades. Both were middle aged now, and both had their arms crossed. Matching expressions of disapproval marred their otherwise kind features.

Victoria froze, Ivysaur bumped into the back of her leg, and when he peeked out from behind her what he saw made him duck back out of sight.

The sister on the right was as striking to the eye as the sister on the left was plain. They shared the same short stature and the same black hair, but not much else. The sister on the right rocked a brilliant pink mohawk, except where the black roots were showing halfway down it, and her tan face was adorned with piercings as well as a tattoo of Razor Leaves that trailed down one cheek, circled her neck, and vanished into a black shirt. The sister on the left sported a simple bob cut, very straight bangs not unlike the ones on Victoria's wig, and a green tank top with dirt-stained jeans.

"You destroyed half our Gym!" the sister on the left said, glaring at Victoria.

Before Victoria had a chance to hasten her way through a mortified apology, the sister on the right groaned loudly and slapped her hand to her forehead under the trail of pink bangs.

"Really, Jo? Every time? Every _single_ time?"

Jo turned to her sister, and after a moment a twitch of a smile broke out over her face. "Every single time," she confirmed, and Victoria just stared at them.

Zo made a playfully disgusted sound and Jo went on the defensive. "You were putting on the show too!" she insisted. "Being all pissy!" She nudged her sister's tall black boot with her own sneaker.

"Yeah," Zo said, "It's fun to see the challengers think they messed up royally, but you say," she jabbed her sister in the belly, "the same," another jab, "thing," a third, "every! Single! Time!" Her last three words were punctuated with more attacks and Jo stifled a scream-laugh and pushed her away.

Victoria was powerfully reminded of herself and Beth, and her lingering bewilderment melted away into a strange half-smile. "So I'm… _not_ about to be arrested for destruction of property?" she clarified. Jo and Zo fixed her with identical smiles.

"No," Jo said. "Though even if you _were_ I'm sure you could get off without too much hassle."

"Doubt it," Victoria said. "If I could spin it so it looked like an honest mistake, maybe. But this?" She gestured to the abject ruin she'd carved through the hedgerows. "Clear intent."

Jo and Zo looked at one another and raised their eyebrows. "Oh ho," Jo said. "So we have a challenger who knows her law." Victoria was beginning to peg her as the more talkative sister, in spite of Zo's more outlandish appearance.

Victoria shrugged her shoulder, but the mention of the challenge refocused her. "That _is_ what I'm here for," she said, resting a hand on her belt. "In part."

"In part?" Zo asked.

"I want to talk too, but that can wait for after. If you've got the time."

Jo tapped her watch a few times, navigating some screen or other, then nodded. "You're the only one who's come by all day, 'cept for the guy standing outside for no apparent reason." She glanced up. "He with you?"

Victoria saw no cause to lie. "Yeah, my friend's waiting for me to wrap up in here."

Zo nodded. "Alright then. Consider your request for a chat granted." She paused, then smiled. "Right after we hand you a Gym loss."

Victoria felt her own smile grow. "I've got a total of four, and my top is around 45."

Jo and Zo glanced to one another as if debating. "How good are you at multitasking?" Jo finally asked, conversationally.

Victoria frowned. "I… would say I'm fairly good at it," she answered, not needing to tack on the _why_?

"Four on four then?" Zo asked, releasing two balls from her belt as Jo did the same. "Concurrent battles, no opponent swapping?"

Victoria paused. That was an interesting idea. "So whichever Pokémon get paired up to fight one another keep that opponent until one of them is taken out of the battle?"

"Correct," said Jo. "An outright winner has to take three of the four fights going on. If it's two and two we do a tiebreaker fight with one each of the Pokémon who were left standing."

"Sounds fair," Victoria said. She knew this was going to be difficult, but the same part of her that was completely fine saving her talk for after the fight was also itching for a real challenge. Victoria had never made it to Whittaker-Cheng—not that she'd have wanted to fight him—so this marked her first Gym Leader battle. She'd never been overly competitive as a trainer, but now that she was here she could see the appeal that drew hundreds of young people to the Initiative to get starters and Dexes each year.

"Pick your first," Zo said, enlarging one of her balls and indicating she'd chosen.

"Ivysaur," Victoria said, and her Grass-type rounded her legs to square off against whatever its opponent would be. Zo hit her release button and a Parasect appeared, skittering its several conical legs in a threatening and menacing way.

Victoria picked Victreebel, which wound up facing off against Zo's own Victreebel—Victoria's Vileplume wound up matched with Jo's Vileplume as well and Jo accused her of stacking the deck—and when Butterfree was paired with Jo's final chosen Pokémon, Exeggcute, the four teams of fighters moved off to four corners of the arena.

"You sure you can handle?" Jo quipped over to Victoria as they took their several paces back from the four fights ready to start.

"No," Victoria responded coolly, eying her Pokémon and prioritizing where her attention would go first, stay the longest, or hardly be needed. "I know we can." It was horrifically cheesy, but damn it, Victoria was going to milk her one and only Gym challenge for all it was worth. Jo and Zo gave her those identical grins and called to their teams.

Four attacks erupted at once. It was overwhelming chaos from the first second, but Victoria felt her mind adapting, tracking it, organizing the data the way she might tackle a chart or a list.

Jo's Vileplume spewed a sticky spray of Acid at Victoria's, and Victoria shouted, "O, push through!" It was a snap-second decision to revert to the first-ever battle nickname Victoria had used for Vileplume, back when it was an Oddish, but Vileplume responded just fine. It spun a wild, erratic circle and shot straight through the sludgy mess, the faint sound of poison hissing off its petals but not doing any visible damage. Vileplume smashed headlong into Jo's Pokémon and released an exploding puff of Sleep Powder right into the other Vileplume's face. Victoria grinned savagely—Vileplume had always excelled at powders, and the enemy it faced went down in an unconscious heap.

Victoria switched tac on a dime. Victreebel was fine for now, tied up with Zo's own Victreebel in a flexible dance of snapping vines. Victoria spared only half a second to check in there before snapping her eyes to Butterfree, who was madly dodging a Barrage from Exeggcute. The Pokémon sent parts of itself flying at Victoria's Bug-type in an objectively beautiful, seamless, synchronized series of ever rotating motions and Victoria sucked a breath in against her teeth at the way Butterfree was beginning to flag, its agility failing.

"Gust!" she shouted, and a moment later the foremost egg faltered, wavered, and then flew back and smacked headlong into the rest. Their pattern ruined, they scattered in different directions and Butterfree dove in to retaliate.

Victoria had saved Ivysaur for last, though it hadn't been her intention. She focused in there now in time to catch her Pokémon dodging the Parasect's leaping slashes, batting each strike away with his vines.

"Razor Leaf!" she shouted, and Ivysaur delivered. Rather than slicing larger leaves through the air for targeted attacks, Ivysaur released an outright swarm of tinier leaves, pelting Parasect in an unstoppable, unavoidable surge. The Bug-type tried to dodge and got most of the first wave, dodged the other way and managed to catch most of the second, and was knocked backwards by three strategically-fired larger leaves after the first hail storm.

"O" was still beating on Jo's sleeping Vileplume, but the Gym Leader had had enough. She whistled for a heal break and crossed quickly to that fight with a bottle of Awakening in hand.

"Lock and load," Victoria called to Vileplume, but didn't specify with powder for it to prep. She trusted it implicitly, and what was more, this way Jo wouldn't know what to expect next turn.

Ivysaur brayed loudly, and though Victoria had just had eyes on that fight, she snapped her attention back his way. The last sticky, buzzing waves of Stun Spore were fading around Ivysaur and her Pokémon was grimacing and twitching with a clear Paralysis status effect.

Victoria cursed quietly under her breath and issued a shrill whistle of her own, adopting Jo's method to bring a fight to a quick and neat pause. While Ivysaur bounded back her way, a little messily due to his limbs only half-working, Victoria scanned the other fights. The Victreebel fight, to her dismay, was starting to look a little mismatched. Hers was currently wrapped up for what looked like it would be a long time of struggling futilely to escape. Victoria mentally cursed again and knelt to spray Ivysaur down fast, silently beseeching her oldest Pokémon to hold out against its opponent for just a little longer.

Meanwhile Butterfree hit Exeggcute full-frontal with Confusion, which had been a great choice. Exeggcute took damage and a confusion effect to boot. From across the way Victoria heard Jo swear, done waking up her Vileplume and now focusing back in on her Exeggcute.

As it turned out, what "O" had locked-and-loaded per Victoria's orders was another point-blank Sleep Powder attack. Even Victoria hadn't expected that and, still sleepy from its last bout with an unwanted nap, Jo's Vileplume went down hard for a second time, a ragged, screechy snore issuing from its prone form. This time Jo's curse was coupled with exasperated laughter.

Victoria couldn't spare the time for amusement, though. Ivysaur was back in the fight against Parasect, but was barely able to dodge a series of spinning, wild slashes. Each one got closer and closer to hitting home and Victoria debated taking control of his fight and issuing commands, but held off for now.

Victreebel needed her more. It was finally released from its enemy's hold and Victoria whistled at that fight at once, running over to heal her plant since it didn't look up to even the short trek to reach her. Victoria and Jo were both wrapped up healing or waking up team members, but Victoria kept her eye trained hard on the Vileplume battle that was getting ready to recommence any second now.

The moment it did, Victoria cried, "Acid, O!" Vileplume spewed the attack out at once, then leapt into the air the best it could—and a good thing, too. The enemy Vileplume had gone straight for a charge. Victoria released Victreebel back to its fight, which devolved once again into a flurry of snapping vines.

The battles were so hard to keep track of, but far from feeling overwhelmed, Victoria's excitement only grew the more they developed around her, shifting and moving and tilting tightrope acts. Butterfree was hit a few times by Barrage and needed a heal break. Ivysaur got cut several times by Parasect but was still hanging in there, looking sharp-eyed and robust, so she left him alone.

The other Victreebel, however, was plain awful. Her own was locked in a constant, disheartening struggle, needed the most status effect removal and heal breaks of all four fights, and was flagging as the battle wore on. It occurred to Victoria, with a sudden and certain calm, that she might lose that fight no matter how on their game they were.

The first victory of the battle went to "O." It had kept the other Vileplume admirably on the ropes for thirty harrying seconds, spraying first Poison Powder, then Stun Spore, then Sleep Powder all in rotating shifts. Each powder acted differently, and each one needed a radically different dodging or endurance strategy. When Victoria's Pokémon swapped up the order with no warning, the enemy Vileplume took Stun Spore full to the face, twitched versus dodging the next move, and ate a Petal Dance that took it straight out of the fight in a brutal KO.

Victoria stifled a cheer. Her Vileplume didn't stay around to gloat, instead quickly vacating the floor so as not to get in anyone else's way. A surge of warmth for her considerate, shy team member took Victoria for a brief second as Jo recalled her downed Pokémon, and Victoria caught Vileplume's eye long enough to give it a brilliant smile and a double thumbs-up. Vileplume went rosy and silly under the praise.

There was no time for anything beyond that, though. Victreebel was hit hard with Slam, then Razor Leaf. Victoria whistled, but even as she bolted across the arena floor, jumping over a root so she wouldn't trip over it, she knew. She was locked in Death Row in this match, and as she knelt down beside her oldest and strongest team member, she smiled at the worn-down, exhausted plant. "Just do your best," she said gently, spraying down its leaves and keeping only cursory attention trained on the other fights.

Once, her team had been so woefully mismatched that she'd have chalked herself up as doomed if Victreebel looked this rough so early in a fight. It had been her first evolution and her powerhouse for so long, but now it didn't have to carry the burden all alone. Even if this battle was done for—and indeed, it looked like it was—Victoria knew they still had a solid chance with Butterfree and Ivysaur still kicking. She released Victreebel back to its fight, let her gaze linger for a moment there, and zeroed back into a different battle in time to see Butterfree eat a Barrage attack yet again.

Butterfree's next move missed and when Jo shouted "Hypnosis!" at Exeggcute Victoria held her breath. The attack hit Butterfree and wavering, warbly sounds almost seemed to visually distort the air too, but after an uncertain moment Butterfree buffed off the effect. Victoria debated a heal break—Butterfree looked a bit worn. But when her Bug-type flapped several times in a row as if psyching itself up, Victoria decided to take a gamble and hold off.

She caught Jo watching her with interest from where she stood near her final Pokémon, but couldn't decipher the look and didn't have time to dwell.

Ivysaur, evidently, had discovered that Zo's Parasect _abhorred_ Cut. The opponent hadn't been expecting it, apparently, and was currently shrieking with rage and jumping back from Ivysaur's slashing vines. Victoria didn't have to give Ivysaur the word to keep it up, nor did she have to suggest he become even _more_ unpredictable if he could be. Even now she could see him slowly folding more erratic moves into this dance of his that was driving Parasect up the wall.

Like a timer going off in her head, Victoria realized it had been several rounds since Butterfree had last landed that amazingly useful confusion status to Exeggcute. "Supersonic!" she shouted without looking, knowing only one of her team members knew that move, and she heard the attack go off to her left. When she tore her eyes from Victreebel and Ivysaur to see how Butterfree's aim had been, she was rewarded with the last of the rays fading and Exeggcute _immediately_ turning about face and slamming straight into one another midair. They scattered and slammed into the floor, shouting accusations at each other in their strange, shrill language, and Victoria had to physically bite her cheek to avoid bursting into laughter.

Jo and Zo did no such thing. Both sisters doubled up laughing, even as Jo shouted an apology to her ruffled, offended eggs through her tears. Zo winced and tried her best to master a spasm of giggles, to no great effect.

But Victoria's own moment of humor was short-lived. Victreebel was fatigued, its vines lashing out slower and slower, taking more and more hits. Victoria watched, heart aching as it continued to fade, trusting that the other fights were taken care of as she devoted her entire attention here.

A split second before what she recognized as the setup for one of the enemy Victreebel's brutal Razor Leaf attacks, Victoria whistled. Zo lifted her hand to stay her Victreebel's attack, and Victoria breathed out a sigh before saying, "This one goes to you."

Zo didn't protest, but the look she gave Victoria was as thoughtful and pensive as the one Jo had given her not moments before. Victoria unhooked Victreebel's ball from her belt, made brief, uncertain eye contact with Zo, and returned her spent Grass-type.

Victoria now had to win both of the remaining fights, lest they enter tie-breaker mode. With this in mind, she called for a heal break for Butterfree, and Jo in turn used that break to heal her battered, dizzy Exeggcute.

While Victoria sprayed down a tuckered-out Butterfree she kept her eyes trained on Ivysaur. He reared back in the posture she recognized for Razor Leaf, but what he sent out were his vines instead. They cracked hard along Parasect's sides and the opponent Pokémon shrieked in dismayed affront. It dove forward for a slash and Ivysaur, for all the world, looked like he was going to parry the strikes with his vines. However, only one vine shot out and instead he Leech Seeded Parasect point blank, accepting the damage he took when the slashes hit home. Parasect rolled away, spitting mad, and released a retaliatory Stun Spore Ivysaur's way that Ivysaur almost entirely blocked with another hail of tiny Razor Leaves. He was absolutely killing this, and what was more—he was having _fun_.

Victoria's face split into a broad, ferociously proud grin. Using leaves as a sudden burst of a shield was a technique she'd lifted straight from watching Jason and Venusaur, and as she mulled that over her smile turned even more sly. It wasn't the only technique she'd folded into Ivysaur's repertoire.

Butterfree and Exeggcute were back at it, and Victoria had the idea to issue the order for String Shot approximately half a second after Butterfree decided to do just that. Grinning that she and her accidental catch were so in tune with each other now, Victoria watched with satisfaction as nearly all the eggs were coated in sticky, elastic fibers that stretched and twanged as they struggled to get free.

Her face fell, though, when they immediately began to use this to their advantage. The two that were not stuck in the stuff circled fast around those that were, yammering squeaky orders, and those trapped stretched themselves out as far as they could get from each other, straining. What they ended up creating was a trampoline—or more accurately, a slingshot, which Victoria only realized when the two free eggs shot themselves into it and were flung wildly back straight at Butterfree. Butterfree, too stunned to dodge, was struck in a brutal one-two punch by both of them in rapid succession. It was Barrage on steroids and Victoria sucked in a hiss of air.

She knew Butterfree was low on health again but to heal break now could mean sentencing the fight to Death Row. "Psybeam!" Victoria shouted, pulling out all the stops. Butterfree's first attack glanced off the mass of trapped eggs, but the two free-floaters dodged. Butterfree dropped straight out of the air when they aimed their next devastating, high-powered Barrage its way, and in a rush of possible insanity, Victoria picked the most off-the-wall move in her Pokémon's roster.

"Harden!"

Butterfree likely hadn't used the move since its days as the Eternal Metapod. Its whole body shimmered, going more reflective under the ethereal green filtered light, and the extra boost in defense made the next glancing hit from the eggs hurt less. It was just barely enough.

Victoria's final cry of, "Psybeam!" hit home, and when Exeggcute slammed down to the ground, too weary to keep themselves in the air and all of them now fully entangled in one another, Victoria felt her knees go weak. If she had a Dex she knew it would be screaming its alert at her. They'd won that one by the skin of their teeth.

It was all down to Ivysaur now. Parasect's personal hangups seemed to make it a laughable, fussy opponent. It would be easy to relax here, so thoroughly had Ivysaur been flustering it and handily maintaining the position of power.

Victoria flat-out refused to underestimate it. She hadn't spent years being Gav's indefatigable devil's advocate for nothing. What was more, the way it was positioned, as if seething silently with rage, felt a little _too_ convenient. A touch too over-the-top, too clearly an invitation for Victoria and Ivysaur to gloat and laugh at its frustration.

She made up her mind in an instant. "Vine it up!" she shouted, and Ivysaur snagged the bug in its vines and, instead of squeezing it or throwing it into something at eye-level, chucked Parasect straight up into the air.

What happened next was the very last thing Victoria had ever expected. Parasect unleashed a torrent of brilliant, fever-bright energy, which swirled around and around in a chaotic arc, aimed every which way as its trajectory was wildly interrupted. It blasted through some hedges and left a dark patch across the sycamore's trunk. Victoria's mouth fell open.

It was _Hyper Beam._ A Parasect had been taught _Hyper Beam_ of all things. She barely had a chance to react, let alone plan for the next attack. Belatedly, a piece of trivia delivered in Gina's voice popped up in her head: _you get a free move while it recharges!_ Victoria shouted, "Razor it, then vines ready!"

Ivysaur, for his part, adapted to the absolutely left-field attack handsomely. He let everything he had go, peppering the resting Parasect with small, medium, large and extra large leaves, all shapes, hues and thicknesses. When he was done his vines snaked out of his bud and hovered, twitching back and forth like twin serpents.

Parasect, mandibles twitching in irritation and pain, reared back on its spindly legs—and dove straight into the ground. After a wild half a second of dirt and turf flying, it was gone.

 _Dig!_ Victoria thought, half-hysterical with a disbelief that almost felt like amusement. Who in the world would have guessed? "Vines ready," she told Ivysaur, unable to give him a more detailed order—to do so would tip off Jo and Zo, both of whom were watching this fight with the utmost, unwavering attention.

It wasn't like the cartoons, where Victoria could clearly track exactly where Parasect was by eyeballing a constantly-moving tunnel of disturbed Earth. She hadn't the faintest idea where or when it would burst out of the earth to land a staggering blow to her Pokémon's delicate underbelly—but Ivysaur and she waited in tandem, sharing a perfect, needlepoint silence.

"Up!" she shouted almost in unison with the rumble of earth below him.

Ivysaur's vines shot straight into the air, latched onto an overhanging bough, and he hoisted himself up and away just in the nick of time. Parasect erupted from the dirt in a spray of mud, grass and stone, large pincers flailing and thrashing, and it only had time to screech in fury before Ivysaur dropped himself back down right on top of it. The Leech Seeds glowed, Ivysaur slammed his head straight into Parasect's face, and the Tackle attack brought the final Gym battle to an end.

Victoria didn't even try to act proud. She doubled up, nearly missing as her hands flew out to find stability on her knees. She hung her head, breathing out a long, shaky rush of air. Her hands were a sweaty nightmare. Her whole _body_ was a sweaty nightmare. She was hot and cold and shaking all over and couldn't even bring herself to smile yet.

One of the sisters started to clap in a painfully delayed cadence. Zo groaned out, "Jo, don't slow clap, _no one_ does that in real life." Somehow, Victoria managed to straighten up. She sort of felt like barfing.

Jo laughed long and hard. When she stopped to wipe her eye she said, "How did you know that Parasect was going to use a new attack?"

"I didn't," Victoria swore. "Honest! I just had a feeling something was going to happen."

"Those tricks," Zo added. "That your Ivysaur did. You're the first person I've seen who fought that way. I mean, I've seen variations, but not that many unique uses of attacks in one fight."

Victoria shook her head. "I can't take the credit for it. One of my friends—he's an Initiate, and he's got a Venusaur. I shamelessly lifted all those techniques."

"Stealing is the sincerest form of flattery," Jo said.

"Pretty sure that's 'imitation,'" Zo said. "Stealing is, last I checked, still a flat-out crime." Jo stuck her tongue out at her sister and the conversation flowered organically from there

Victoria and the sisters jumped from the subject of crime and law enforcement to talk of the punitive system in general, though Victoria had to struggle to keep her face neutral and her tone active and engaged through it. Talk of incarceration always brought up unwanted associations for her. Luckily they pinged straight off that to discussions about the economy, which of course was directly tied to the number of those incarcerated. Celadon would never get away from tourism as a primary source of income, but any robust city needed to prepare for the lean times when ripple effects from sister areas might mean travelers were tightening their belts and not taking as many vacations. They branched off into talks of clean energy—Victoria was all for Pokémon-run generators but sported the, in her words, "apparently unpopular opinion" that there had to be green backups that didn't rely solely on Pokémon to function. Jo made an ecstatic face and kissed her fingertips, like Victoria's unpopular opinion was a fine cuisine. Apparently she agreed.

It was completely easy to follow their conversational trails. Victoria had never been the social butterfly of her family—her mother, a literal social worker, and Beth, had of course taken the cake there. Her father had been more like Victoria, quieter, reserving outward judgment even if he silently collected data while he let his more bubbly wife do the talking. Yet Victoria had been absolutely deprived of the chance to talk to people outside of her core group for so long that it felt wonderful to do so now. She welcomed the random asides with open arms. Apparently the identical twin bit had gotten old for Jo and Zo after about ten years of age. Zo used to date Yuji from the Viridian City Gym—and Jo shared an insider scoop that he was balding these days because he'd overbleached his hair in their youth. Zo elbowed her and called her a dirty liar.

Their more serious political talks wound around to education—and that brought them naturally to the Initiative.

"I'm actually not against the Initiative," Victoria said, but even as she shared that she had to pause. "Not… well, not anymore. There's more to it than a bunch of kids snubbing higher education or trade apprenticeships to parade around Kanto and waste the government's money."

"Is there?" Zo asked, and Victoria couldn't tell if the question was pointed or neutral. The punk rock sister was so much harder to read than her silly sibling.

"It is," Victoria answered with absolute confidence. "It's got to be reigned in, somewhat—licensing tests, for example. And programs that allow Initiates to attend college online, maybe from the Dexes. Give them a limited internet connection so they can post their assignments and at least not fall so far behind their peers who don't do the Master Journey thing."

"Licensing tests?" Jo asked, leaning forward from where she'd taken a seat on a root. "Tell me more."

Victoria felt a weird, flattered curl of discomfort—she was talking a lot and it felt conspicuous, but she shrugged it off and went on. "Mandatory advising sessions to make sure they've got a plan in place for when their journey is done, basic survival and first aid courses, a money management seminar, and above all else the basics of training and Pokémon care. I know three Initiates who…" Victoria paused, furrowed her brow, and smiled in a tight, almost painful way. Warmth bloomed in her chest, fierce and bright and proud. "Who are utterly amazing. People like them would pass with flying colors. And those who don't? They can retest later. But they won't be shotput out into the world not ready for what they'll face, and the expenditure would drop dramatically. Everyone should have the opportunity to go on this journey. But it should be a privilege you prove you can handle if it's going to be free."

Jo and Zo shared another small, unreadable smile that Victoria wasn't sure how to interpret. An invisible clock had started counting down in her head the moment she'd finished talking, and she knew it was time to get to the meat and bones of why she'd really come.

"Okay," Victoria said, nerves fluttering to life in her chest. "I did want to chat, and I know that's what we've been doing. But I'm actually here to talk about something different, and… we haven't touched on it yet. I'm really hoping that you'll hear me out while I set this up for you, and after? Ask questions, please. Any question, all your questions. I'll tell you everything I know."

Jo and Zo frowned at that, and their frowns only grew as Victoria presented her information. They honored her requests—both to remain quiet and let her have time for her spiel, and then to fire question after question at her. Victoria recited timelines from memory, named specific locations, repeated key pieces of information and endured all the cross-examination without once letting her mounting nerves show on her face. She didn't have to feign her absolute sincerity, but the calm she wore was a complete act.

Jo blew out a breath and Zo closed her eyes some half an hour later. Victoria let them have that silence and indulged in a very slow blink herself, a quiet moment to try to center her racing thoughts.

"So you saw Lily, and she's onboard."

"Yes," Victoria said.

"And Armstrong was onboard before her."

"Yes."

"Wow," Jo breathed, and when Victoria answered with another, weary, emphatic " _yes_ ," the sisters chuckled in unison.

"Then count us among your allies. We'll want to talk to the other Leaders involved, of course… compare notes. Nothing personal." Victoria shook her head, barely daring to hope, and Zo smiled at her wanly. "And… you can trust Avery. I'd try him next."

"Yuji too," Jo added, casting Zo a small smile. "How could you forget him? You're the reason he's bald."

Victoria let out a strangled, quiet, weak-kneed chuckle and let her eyes slip shut. Another two Leaders onboard. The names of two additional ones who could be trusted. She was dizzy with this victory, nearly sick to her stomach with the relief of it.

"You know… you're just balanced enough," Jo said, and Victoria opened her eyes, still a little bleary. "We hear a lot of people talking about reforming Kanto, saving the world and all that. Usually some pretty extreme ideas. 'Do away with the Initiative!' 'Use Pokémon to power our cities!' ' _Never_ use Pokémon to power our cities!' Seeing both sides of an issue and being able to articulate why people want what they want on both sides… well. It isn't… always what makes it into the news, but it's what our city needs in a Representative." Zo gave Victoria a warmer smile, the first one that didn't feel reserved and secretive. "When this is all over… this fight you and your friends are fighting. Come back to Celadon. You've got a bright future here."

* * *

Amaris griped hard when she finally reappeared. Evidently he'd had five hundred birthdays while she was away and Kanto had endured an ice age and thawed and rebuilt itself in an exact replica of its former glory. Victoria disregarded his sass and reported her success quietly, managing to keep the idiotic grin off her face with amazing effort. Amaris looked about ready to lie right down on the grass from the sheer weight that lifted from him.

" _Thank god,_ " he said with vehement emphasis. "You made the Grass-trainer connection."

"And the political egghead connection, and the Celadon native connection," Victoria teased, a high, almost hysterical laugh bubbling free from her. She felt positively buoyant. "Don't sell me short."

Amaris made a _cheh_ sound. " _I_ could have made the Celadon native connection," he insisted.

That brought Victoria up short. "… You could've?" she asked. "You're… weren't you born and raised in Pallet?"

Amaris hesitated for just a second, but then shook his head. Realizing they'd waltzed their way into what might be personal territory, Victoria contemplated how to back them out of it, but he went on. "My parents lived in Celadon. I was actually born here." He frowned. "Not that I remember it."

"Moved young?" Victoria asked, though the answer was an obvious yes. He gave her a _not you too, I expect more from you_ withering look and she rolled her eyes. "Okay yes, you clearly did."

"I don't remember a lot about… any of it, I guess. My parents died in Celadon and uncle came to claim me at the Celadon Department of Social Services." Victoria looked over at him with interest, wondering if her mother had known the person who worked on his case, but Amaris took it as a prompt to go on. He shrugged. "All uncle told me was… stuff I needled out of him when I was older. He didn't want to, you know… drop the fact that my parents were drug addicts and wrecked their car while under the influence on me when I was five. For some reason." He smirked a little, and Victoria found herself suddenly and violently unsure of how to navigate these waters. How did Gina do it? He was joking about objectively horrible things and she had no clue if she should laugh or stay quiet.

"Can't imagine why," she intoned dryly, and that wound up being a good response, because he chuckled and shook his head. The smile remained, but his gaze went a little distant.

"It's remarkable, isn't it?" he commented. "My uncle actually had no clue—not the faintest idea—that I even existed. Wasn't in touch with his sister anymore. One phone call and I changed his entire life." His brows furrowed and he seemed to be calculating something for a second. "He was twenty-one when he got the call to come get me. No, not even just to get me… to sit through screenings and interviews to see if he was even _fit_ to be my guardian. He could have flopped on purpose to avoid the responsibility he never thought he'd have to shoulder… but he didn't. And he never resented me for it. He simply…" He blinked his way back from wherever he'd gone, the search for the right term bringing him back. He looked just a touch abashed, but covered it with a shrug and wrapped up succinctly. "Stepped up to the plate."

Victoria had to wonder why he was sharing this with her, though the discussion wasn't unwelcome. It just felt odd, a little out of place, though they'd never had the chance to travel solo before now. And, another part of her reasoned, perhaps she could serve as a nonthreatening person to divulge this to. With their shared past and their mutual investment in the professor's memory, it might be too real, too painful, for Amaris to talk about this casually with Gina.

"He sounds like a rockstar," Victoria joked lightly.

"Oh, that was terrible," Amaris responded to her pun, his voice flat. "Alana would be so proud."

They left the serious topic behind and spoke lightly of other things, and Victoria was able to go on small talk autopilot. Yet the idea of professor Andrew Drake, barely into his twenties, doing the best he could for an infant nephew who had suddenly become his entire world, would not leave her alone. A tightness twisted in her chest as they left the sloping gardens of the Celadon City Gym behind them, blanketed in all its midday glory.

* * *

"I know a guy that can deliver it for you," Wilbur said, his voice a little grainy from whatever bad connection he was working with. "But you can't make a habit of this, right?"

"Right," Victoria said, nodding to add weight to the word even though he couldn't see it. "I promise I won't. I…" She swallowed tight around the lump in her throat, part gratitude, part shame. "Thank you."

She hung up and pulled her green stationery to her. She'd once used it to carefully pen out a list of pros and cons about keeping Gav and Kaylee Harrison in her life. Now, holed up in the Broome's conference room for privacy, Ivysaur curled at her feet, sound asleep, she set out to write something entirely different.

Once, during those long awful weeks spent holed up in the abandoned Power Plant, going on dried food and too little sleep, Victoria had let some of her blackened vitriol slip during a conversation with Beth.

 _I guess mom will just think felonies run in the family._

 _Vee, don't…_

 _I'm sorry,_ Victoria had said at once, hating herself for the pain that flickered across Beth's face. Beth had given her a tight, sad smile, forgiven her at once, but Victoria remembered.

There was that slow, toxic burn that tasted like years of resentment, a quiet, letdown disappointment that didn't even actively cross her mind anymore. It was reduced to a silty, unstable foundation that mucked her up, refused to hold her steady, and made her look at the whole world through a dark, cynical lens. She was forever tilted to the side, the opposite of the level head she'd always strived to have. In her world a person either did good deeds or did bad deeds, and their soul was weighed against those actions. So much of that was still true to her, still mostly black-and-white.

But Victoria had grayed over the years, in ways she was too close to see most of the time. She existed in that gray space now as her pen looped words onto the pages.

Victoria wrote about the group of friends she would do anything for, and that they knew they'd been all over the news. She was sorry she couldn't explain more. She could only imagine the worry they were causing everyone. She couldn't explain it all here, but she could give other updates, and she would.

Beth was doing just fine. She continued to be the sunshine in any room, her sister's loyal "grumpy mode" translator and indefatigably optimistic.

Victoria was getting married. He was a good man, hardworking to a fault, utterly devoted to her, a complete geek and a little ridiculous. They were perfect for each other.

Her eyes misted over and she powered through it, knowing if she stopped there was a chance she'd never start it up again. Her courage was a nonrenewable resource, a tiny sprout struggling to grow in that mucky silt where nothing had survived for so long.

Ivysaur breathed quietly at her side, and she reached down to pet him as she penned out her sign-off salutation on what had turned into a seventeen-page letter to her father.

 _Love,_

 _Ivy_


	17. Castles of Sand :Orion:

Pokémon Azure

Chapter 17: Castles of Sand

(Orion Fremont)

"So, you're okay?" Tim asked the phone, his eyes focused on a point in the middle distance. A slight, pained frown was on his face. "I mean, as okay as you _can_ be, given you're on the run?"

"Honestly, I'm fine," James Dasten's patient, amused voice said over the honestly shitty connection to wherever he was. "I've got friends in high places, low places and all the places in between. I've been keeping my head down, doing a lot of work…"

"Work that can't be tracked, right?" Tim asked. A second later he closed his eyes and smirked wanly.

Dasten gave a loud, theatrical groan. "Really, kid?"

"Sorry," Tim said, exasperation and humor warring in his voice.

" _Really?_ " Dasten said again, and Tim chuckled. "You're what? Half my age?"

Tim snorted. "Try a third." To that, Dasten gave a multi-syllable, gravely offended _oh-h-h-h!_ and called Tim an unflattering name.

Orion had felt the shadows of things that might have been smiles, but none of them actually made it out onto his face. Bits and pieces amused him here and there. Other things brought him relief, like the fact that Dasten, after fleeing the abject wreck they'd made of his labs, had managed to keep himself successfully out of trouble. This banter, too, was funny in its way, but the storm clouds were a little too firmly in place for Orion to express any of his lighter blips of mood outwardly.

Orion had mixed feelings about the Champ who was holding Alan Zachariah's secure line in his outstretched hand right now. He also knew better than to cause waves when the seas were stormy enough without him, but it didn't mean he had to smile and chuckle like some of the others seated around the tech table were.

"Congrats on Lily, Jo and Zo," Dasten was saying to Tim. Orion had lost track of a little of the conversation and resolved to do better and focus. "I second their vote to go find Avery. He's solid, and I'd know… having lived practically next door to the man and worked with him for years. However…" Dasten trailed off, but didn't leave them in suspense for too long. "I gotta admit. Avery is… not really your fan right now. You know… what with the bringing unrepentant chaos to his island and all that."

"Yeeeah," Kaylee said slowly, the cringe on her face translating to her tone too. "No, we get that. We'll be prepared for, um. A bit of a frosty reception."

"Kaylee Harrison, was that a fire pun?" Dasten asked, and Kaylee snorted into her hands.

"I didn't mean it, I swear!" she said, and Tim waggled his eyebrows at her.

"Suuure." He snapped back to business quickly, though. "Thanks for the second vote, Dasten. It really helps knowing that another Champ vouches for the guy. I mean, just from a personal standpoint."

Kaylee practically vibrated with poorly restrained energy from where she was seated across from Tim. "I can't _wait_ to get'im," she said, talking about Avery like he was simultaneously a sure thing and a rare Pokémon to nab. "In fact… I can take this one." She checked her watch, of all things. "Hell. I could go today. It's not like we've got anything else going on right now other than prepping and leveling."

Tim asked the question that had flashed across Orion's mind. "Why did you feel the need to look at your watch?"

Kaylee shot back with, "Silence, man-creature," and Dasten laughed.

It was another moment Orion might have smiled at, if he'd been in a better mood. Kaylee and Tim, evidently, had made up. She must have been rushing off to patch things up with him when she'd nearly taken him out in the collision in the hallway. He'd have been impressed if they'd managed to still be at odds after she'd directed all of that manic, blaze of glory energy at their relationship problems. Sometimes he felt that if they just riled Kaylee up and pointed her at their enemies she could take them down just by being really, _really_ motivated in their general direction—sort of like a human version of Hyper Beam.

Orion had also noticed that Tim was cold and tense whenever he passed by him in the hallway. Even now, when the Champ's eyes slid over to Orion, the smile on his face flickered. It was like a part of him was actively trying to forget that Orion was present, and seeing his face was an unpleasant reminder. The unexplained treatment and the palpable, cold tension were putting Orion on edge, and the prolonged, aggressive eye contact was making him downright angry. It was absolutely exhausting to always feel so ready to fight at the drop of a hat.

Just when Orion was beginning to wonder when the next part of his day was going to begin, Jason, Gina and Amaris emerged from another hallway. Orion, knowing his cue, stood from the table and nodded to Gav. Gav nodded back, just an acknowledgment that Orion was leaving and nothing more. Kaylee, belatedly, tossed him a hasty, enthusiastic wave as he turned to leave. He lifted his hand back to her, got another glare from Tim, and did his best to smother the embers of irritation that caused as he accompanied the three Initiates out to the greenhouses.

Some days Orion felt useful, and grateful that he could be useful, in certain Alpha-Gene-specific ways. Most of the time he just felt like a freak, and today was one of those days. He knew he should be happy that he was able to serve as a sort-of spotter for his brother so Jason could continue to put Venusaur through the exposure therapy he so needed. But it was hard to feel that way. Orion had only had to "tame" Venusaur back from a hairy situation three or four times, but it felt like three or four times too many. He hated the feeling of going toe-to-toe with any Pokémon, but especially Venusaur, who he had known from the earliest days of his times as a Bulbasaur. It was painfully wrong to watch the way the Grass-type stalked back and forth inside his plexiglass prison, snarling and spitting, when they got too close.

Today's exercise involved Gina and Amaris because Jason had had the idea to let Blastoise and Charizard interact with Venusaur for a more prolonged time. Once the four trainers were situated on the lawn and the three starters were out, Orion got as close as he dared to get, toeing that line between too far to respond and too close to give the proceedings enough space.

There was the predictable squabble, Venusaur slamming his head so hard against the enclosure that the whole thing rattled. Twenty times a session Orion sent up a little prayer of thanks to Alana's amazing, supernatural design skills. This pen was a miracle of modern technology to have not shattered into a million pieces by now.

Charizard and Blastoise made sounds at Venusaur and tried to talk him down from his raging, but when they failed they backed away several paces and waited patiently for him to stop. It took nearly fifteen minutes, but Venusaur eventually calmed and downgraded into a nonstop, low growl. It wasn't good, but it was better than before.

Blastoise stayed where he was, a calming and stabilizing presence, gaze not fixed directly on Venusaur, but more at the flower on his back. It was a classic posture for dealing with an enraged alpha Pokémon and Orion silently awarded the Water-type points for it.

Charizard was more outwardly agitated, but reigned himself in better than he might have before. After several clearly distraught and frustrated glances at Venusaur, he hunkered down on all fours, a weird position for the bipedal lizard, and pushed himself into a position that looked so foreign for him Orion almost didn't recognize it for what it was. Poké-stretching. Orion could almost hear the sound of every heart in the vicinity shattering as Charizard looked hopefully to his friend to see if it jogged any memories. Orion couldn't for the life of him tell if it did.

"I'm gonna train the others," Jason said, his voice hollow and flat. A second later he cleared his throat and tried harder to sound less defeated. "We're not really that useful right now… starters are takin' point. Might as well get something done."

Orion nodded, just because he figured Jason would want confirmation from someone. Gina murmured acquiescence and something about needing to level Ekans. Amaris, however, was just symbolically present. He wasn't entirely engaged. Once in a while he'd look back at the rest of them and nod or offer a one-word reply, but more often than not he simply stared off into the distance. His whole posture was that of preoccupation and melancholy.

Jason pulled five Pokéballs from his belt. Orion could guess without effort which five would emerge from red light, and he was right. Alakazam, Nidoking, Golduck, Rhydon, and Gyarados filled the area around Jason and, as a unit, those five members of his team looked back at Venusaur and one by one looked away.

It was hard to watch. Some of Jason's team, like Nidoking and Golduck, made it a point not to look over at Venusaur too often, as if they felt uncomfortable or like they shouldn't watch their friend in this state. Others had more open-book ways of showing their distress, such as Rhydon, who stared with as much an expression of concern as a creature with a rocky, craggy face could. Alakazam kept him busy as much as possible to remove the weight of that stare from the general direction of the plexiglass pen. Gyarados circled overhead, drifting and gliding on the hot thermals naturally created in the greenhouse, but Orion noted that he, too, gave Venusaur's pen a wide berth.

Orion liked to think he was adept at hearing when a newcomer entered whatever area he was in, but of course the Dragonmaster would be the exception to that rule. Orion had no idea that Lance was even approaching, and then all of the sudden, there he was.

Jason, Orion noted, made no effort to look his way, even while it was painfully obvious that Lance was here to watch the proceedings surrounding Venusaur. Neither man went any closer to the other, but even Lance's presence here bristled Orion's hackles. He'd always been protective of his brother, and that feeling was compounded, aged, refined, and then set on fire and thrown off a cliff thanks to the alpha gene. Orion had zero issue glaring down the side of Lance's face, though Lance made no appearance of noticing or caring.

Instead of engaging with Lance, Jason was training Gyarados, who wasn't paired up with one of his other team members below. This kind of training wasn't combat-heavy. It merely involved Jason trailing a finger through the air like he was holding a lighter aloft at a concert. Gyarados' job was to keep focused at all times on where Jason was pointing and react snap-quick to even the most sudden change in direction.

Gyarados was in fine form today, even if it had to be hard training above his unwell team mate. Jason swung his hand a sharp left and it took only a second for Gyarados to respond and execute an impressive U-turn midair to shoot off in the direction Jason had indicated.

"Put your hand down," Lance said suddenly.

Orion privately felt he couldn't be prouder of Jason than he was when Jason didn't obey. Jason paused, then slowly turned to face Lance, hand still very much aloft. He swirled lazy figure-eights to keep Gyarados busy and engaged. "Why?" he asked, his voice flat, and there went any lingering doubt in Orion's mind. His brother was certainly thinking of what Blake had said, those four simple words beginning to color his interactions with Lance. _He's not your father._

Lance rolled his eyes. "I'm not reprimanding you, boy. I'm giving you advice. Lower your hand and push your dragon farther. He doesn't need to look at where you point to know where you wish him to go."

Jason continued to give Lance a bland look, but apparently getting free advice from a member of the Elite Four was something even his pride couldn't bear to deprive him of. He lowered his hand, turned back to face his dragon and let out a sigh. Gyarados, no longer tracking the figure eights, wound up doing his own thing to stay aloft. He restricted himself to a small area and stared keenly at Jason and Lance.

"Imagine very clearly the direction you want him to go," Lance began, and Jason gritted out a sigh as if it was being torn from him against his will.

"If you're going to tell me to 'picture what I want in my heart' I'm gonna have to say thanks but no thanks."

To Orion's immense surprise, Lance snorted out a rough laugh. It occurred to Orion that the number of people who had dared backtalk the Dragonmaster in the past several decades could probably easily be counted on one hand. "No," Lance said. "But think about it hard while you look at your dragon. When you are ready and you feel he is focused on you and you alone, look in the direction you have chosen. Do not jerk your head, do not point. Merely look."

Orion half-expected to see Gyarados circle in the air like a Ferris Wheel, mimicking an eyeroll from Jason. Yet the dragon stayed put, and as he did a strange sort of calm replaced the slight edginess the Pokémon had shown earlier while waiting for directions that weren't coming. His movements became less twitchy, smoother, and soon only his body moved. His serpentine form glided through the air like a rippling ribbon, his head more or less stationary, always pointed to Jason.

Orion felt it—actually _felt_ it in the part of his body that could now sense a Pokémon's physical state the same way other people might feel a sudden chill. He knew the second Jason looked to the right, because that blitz of awareness rocked through Gyarados. The dragon in the sky was off like a shot, curling away in a blindingly fast, dark blue streamer.

Gina and even Amaris had stopped to look skyward too. All of their Pokémon were watching as well, and—Orion glanced to the pen—even Venusaur's eyes were turned to the heavens. The growl in his throat was momentarily still.

Jason was quiet for a time, but finally turned back to Lance. "That's a cool trick," he said, his voice still a little flat, but with a grudging tone of gratitude.

Lance grunted in a displeased way. "It isn't a _trick._ It's the basics of dragon-training, and seeing as you've got two in your roster, you're overdue for that lesson."

Jason's face twitched into a small smirk that was just the slightest touch sheepish. "I guess, huh?" he admitted, and Lance walked a little stiffly over to him so they stood level with one another. When they continued their talk in lower tones, Orion did his best to banish his misgivings and walked around the other side of the pen to give them some space.

He spotted Gina following him and didn't do anything to stop it. Amaris stayed where he was, isolated now from the two groups of people, and Orion caught the way Gina glanced back at him for a lingering, sad moment. It struck Orion then how weird and unfortunate it was that Gina gravitated to him to pass the time now, and not the boy she'd grown up beside.

"You gonna let yours out?" she asked Orion, sliding her hands into her pockets and watching Venusaur through the slightly smudgy side of the cage. Venusaur was back to glaring at Charizard, but had not recommenced the low growl. It seemed like a good sign.

Suddenly exhausted, Orion took this moment to let down his guard for just a second and rub the rough, uneven skin of the back of his hand across his forehead. His scars felt like speedbumps. "I guess," he mumbled.

"You don't have to," Gina said, but he shook his head.

"No, I want to," he insisted, aware that his voice still sounded put-upon and surly, though he didn't want it to. That just made him more frustrated, but he knew from experience it would be a vicious cycle if he let that take root. "It's really not you. I kind of have to be… 'on'… all the time out here, in case something goes wrong. Unfortunately 'on' means…"

"AGER stuff, I—I get it," Gina said. "Don't worry at all."

Orion eyeballed the number of Pokémon out on the field right now and changed his mind from his full roster to just one. Venusaur was having a good day, it seemed, and good days were not an appropriate time to push the envelope by overloading him with too much stimuli.

Orion released his eldest, the one he felt he could control the best, and when Persian emerged she took her usual few seconds to open her stance, plant her feet square, lower her head and take in potential threats. Her eyes lingered a bit on Venusaur, but as it wasn't the first time she'd seen him in that state, she relaxed quickly enough. She sat regally by Orion's leg, nearly touching him but not quite, and he caught Gina looking at her with a strangely unreadable expression.

It occurred to him that she could be somewhat leery around Persian even after all this time. All three of his team members had been as savage and cruel as he'd been in those first several, awful months after he'd fled them. He was better now; she was better now, too, but his friends had no way of knowing that.

Orion met Gina's eyes, and she read something in his expression. Before he could assure her that Persian was safe, she blurted out, "Can I pet her?"

Of all the questions he'd expected, that was probably dead last. He opened his mouth and when words didn't come to him quickly enough he saw Gina preparing to backpedal. He lifted his hand at once. "No—no, please do," he insisted, and he heard a little of his old, bewildered surprise trickling through.

Gina gave him a smile somewhere between beaming and broken. She carefully approached Persian, not making eye contact, holding her hand out in a closed fist, exactly the way a trainer book might have suggested.

Persian took one long, imperious look at Gina, and then bumped her fist with her head. Gina bit her lip, let Persian rub on her hand for a bit, and then finally turned her way to pet her properly.

"Hey there," Gina said, bringing her other hand into the mix, and Persian, knowing that the big guns were out now, stood, completely abandoned her post by Orion, and leaned her head hard into both of Gina's scratching hands.

Orion chuckled slightly as Persian thwacked him hard in the leg with her tail. "Traitor," he mumbled.

"Yeah, I'm cooler than him, right?" Gina asked Persian. "I've got nails, I give better scritches."

"Not so," Orion joked, and when he glanced at Gina's face he had to look away again quickly. His throat tightened with a mix of good emotion and bad.

"Yeah, it's so," Gina said, her voice wavering a little, and she cleared her throat and bravely spoke through it. "Don't listen to him. You're not too big to still sit on his notebook."

Orion breathed out a shaky laugh and pretended not to notice when Gina pulled one hand back from the aggressive scratches so she could surreptitiously wipe her eye.

* * *

Orion had put off the most unpleasant part of his day for last. It wasn't something he was used to doing. Even as a child he'd preferred to attack the worst of what faced him head-on, getting it over with first, but he supposed everyone had their exceptions. Apparently, watching his father die was one of those.

Orion almost hoped that he'd come across Nathan Fremont fast asleep when he climbed the stairs to his room and slipped the door open. It wasn't so much that he wanted to avoid talking to his father, but the man needed his sleep.

No—that wasn't right, Orion thought as he took in the weakened, emaciated figure half-propped up on every pillow from a total of three guest rooms. His father didn't need rest. His father needed the chemical that had kept him alive all this time. Failing that, he needed food, but his appetite was gone, and Orion could barely convince him to down a few glasses of water these days. Once so active and strong, the first to jump up and get something done, the first to throw a punch in a fight, his father was now bedridden nearly all the time. It weighed on him heavily, made him snappy and unpleasant when he was awake and alert enough to be irate.

They were down to a half a syringe of Factor A. Orion and his father had had their fair share of vicious arguments about whether or not to give it to him. He'd missed his deadline by a painfully long amount of time, longer than Orion had ever seen him go without it. That knowledge weighed on him. He wanted to disregard everything his father said to him during those fights and make a decision knowing full well it was the right one, but of course it couldn't be that simple. Nathan Fremont had several good points.

Once they used the last of this Factor A they'd be out of hard evidence surrounding the chemical and its properties. Once they gave him the last half of the syringe—not even a full dose—there was no guarantee he'd even recover enough to walk around unassisted. There was a good chance it would only buy him another few months of substandard living, and then—

Well, then? He'd die anyway. Everyone knew it, even if no one was saying it out loud.

No one but his father, that was. Nathan Fremont was awake, if the bleary-eyed state he was currently in could be called "awake." Orion closed the door behind him but didn't take a seat at the single chair near his bed. They'd argued about that the one and only time Orion had tried to do so. Orion had to admit, after the fact, that he had a point. He wouldn't want someone seated in a chair beside him like he was on his deathbed, either. It was awkward, though Orion couldn't imagine how having guests stand strangely against the wall was much better.

"That time already?" Fremont asked, his voice gravelly and rough. He cleared his throat but there was no discernable improvement when he continued. "I'm kind of beat so if we could just skip to the part where you storm out of here because I'm being difficult, I'd be obliged."

Orion closed his eyes for a moment and tried not to let that sting. The man felt like shit, and because of it he was lashing out more than usual. "Dad, really. One way or another, you gotta take it."

"I fail to see how that's the only option we have," Fremont said lightly, closing his eyes and leaning back against the pillows, trying to get comfortable.

"It's not as if we can just pack up the last of the stuff and march it over to the police any time soon," Orion said. "The plan right now is to get Gym Leaders on our side, crack open Seafoam Islands, and use our new contacts to bring this stuff live the best way we can."

"And your point is?" Fremont asked, the words aggressive but his tone tired.

"My _point_ is that letting you waste away while we save this piece of evidence that we're not even going to hand over any time soon is pointless. For all we know we might find more of it at Seafoam, too."

"You don't know that," Fremont said.

"We don't _not_ know it either," Orion countered, frowning a little at the confusion caused by his own double-negative. "Look, just _take_ the damn stuff, okay?"

Fremont coughed out a laugh and, with the subtlety of a falling tree, changed the subject. "How's Zahlia?"

Orion knew at once why he'd picked that topic. He'd have been hard-pressed to find one that derailed Orion better. Heat crawled up the back of Orion's neck, a brief and violent chafing against that low blow, but he gritted his teeth and bore through it. "Fine," he said, and because that one-word, petulant answer was too obvious a tell, he worked to smooth it over with fluffier bits of additional information. "Wyland's good too. There's no lasting damage to either of them."

Fremont scoffed. "That wasn't what I was asking and you know it."

Orion buried his face in one hand. "Yeah, I know," he said. "Why are you doing this?"

It was easy to forget when they had these rapid back-and-forths, so characteristic of their relationship, that Fremont wasn't well, and wasn't lucid, all the time. Orion's agitation mounted as he waited for his dad's response, and when none came he snapped his head up and glared at the older man. He'd nodded off.

Adrift and ashamed, Orion swallowed hard and waited for a few heartbeats before he turned to let himself out.

"Your mom used to bring me flowers. I ever tell you that?"

Orion froze, his hand on the doorknob.

"Well?" Fremont asked, his voice that slow, dreamy, slightly loopy tone that clearly marked he was more asleep than awake. He was just conscious enough to hold a conversation about whatever fever images danced behind his eyes.

The answer to his question was a firm no. His father never spoke about his mother, not even to heap abuse upon her. Orion had known some children of divorce growing up, and that was one thing he'd never been able to relate to them about. A few classmates had complained that one parent was forever trying to turn the children against the other, but in Orion's household Linda Fremont may as well have been a myth.

"I can't… picture that," Orion said, softly. He turned from the door but left his hand on the knob as if preparing for a hasty retreat.

"She didn't like gender norms…" Fremont drawled, tired and lazy, dreamlike. He shook his head back and forth, a weird smile quirking his face. "Or whatever that bullcrap is, can't remember. She brought some for me whenever I had a…" He trailed off and swallowed, the sticky click in his throat so loud Orion felt his own mouth go dry in sympathy. "A shitty day. People'd give me weird looks." He rolled his head to the other side and shrugged. "I didn't care."

Orion suddenly lost the ability to move or speak. Breathing was all he could manage, and he privately felt he wasn't even handling that well. He didn't recall consciously deciding to take his hand off the doorknob and move farther into the room.

"I sucked," Fremont continued, a smile twisting to the other side of his mouth now. "Really bad. Could never… get ahead. Just one setback after another. Nothing ever seemed to 'go right for me.'" Orion saw his father's right arm twitch and could imagine it was an attempt at adding air quotes around that last phrase. Just the way he'd intoned it tipped him off. "Or at least, that's what I thought." Fremont coughed out a laugh. "I get it now."

Orion swallowed again, his throat still dry. He didn't want to prod his father for more information, afraid that any movement or phrase on his part would scare this moment away. But when it became clear that his father was in danger of nodding off, the story unfinished, Orion unstuck his throat.

"Get what?"

"That I had _everything,_ " Fremont continued. "I had your mom, and after? I had you, and Jason. Nothing going right for me…" He took his time on every syllable, sarcasm dripping from every word, and his brows pulled together over his closed eyes, thoughtful.

All at once he bore his teeth in a savage grin. "Fuckin' bullshit. _Everything_ was going right for me, every single damned thing. I just didn't see it."

Dimly, from far away, a thought drifted in and out of Orion's brain. He hadn't cried, not once, since he'd packed his meager belongings, torn a page from his notebook, and left his inadequate goodbye on the middle of his bed in Edith's cottage. It wasn't something he'd been keeping track of, some kind of streak he was trying not to break. He'd come close a few times, sure, but it hit him in that moment that he'd not actually been pushed to that point.

"I'd tell you not to fuck up like I did, but I know you won't. It's just… this thing. With your girl. I know you think you killed her brother, and you don't expect her to forgive you. I know that shit's complicated, I know it's a mess. But… you're stronger'n me. Always were. You've got more… faith, in the people you love. You'll…" He trailed off and delivered his last three words on a long, even sigh. "Figure it out."

Orion made up his mind like the sound of a branch breaking, sending him plummeting to the earth below. He got up, not bothering to be quiet or stealthy, and moved to the metal case on the bedside table. He threw the latches open, picked up the final syringe of Factor A in fumbling hands and snagged up the new tourniquet they'd bought.

He'd not even made it half a step closer to his father when Fremont sat bolt upright in bed. His thin arm snapped out and a deceptively strong grip closed on Orion's wrist. His eyes were the blue of a chemical flame, something that could not be soothed by water, and would burn and burn through anything and everything without mercy or remorse.

"Do not waste that on me." Each word burned through Orion along with the powerful urge to lie on the floor, to lace his fingers behind his head and ride out the bomb blast. "Do not make this harder for you, or for me, or for anyone else. You know it's not the right thing to do."

Orion swallowed, tried to suck in a breath, and got maybe a fifth of his lungs filled. He tried again and this time it felt like a tenth. He stumbled back; his father released him. Orion shoved the syringe and tourniquet back into the case. He didn't bother pulling the lid back shut before he raced from the room, barely remembering to pull the door shut behind him.

Orion slammed his back against the hallway, knowing that his father probably heard the impact from his room, but unable to stop himself. He needed something solid behind him, and even that, apparently, wasn't cutting it. The world swayed back and forth like the Broome household was a ship at sea. A wave of nausea threatened to rise in his throat. He tried to breathe again and couldn't, and for a second a cold chill of fear crawled down his nape.

His thoughts, chopped up and rearranged in a strange order, ran in wild different directions. He thought, inexplicably, of the third poisoned syringe contained in most Factor A cases without realizing why he was focused on that idea. It took him several more staticky seconds to realize that it was because of the irrational fear that he'd somehow pricked himself with one. Had they somehow maintained a poisoned syringe without realizing it?

Even as he thought it he knew it didn't make sense. The contents of every single syringe they had left had gone straight into his father's veins, and _he_ hadn't been poisoned.

But Orion felt poisoned now. The world fractured around him, his body betrayed him, and it took him a staggeringly long time to realize what was really happening.

It was a panic attack, the first one in years. It was no wonder he didn't recognize it anymore. The moment he called it by its true name and looked it in the face, one type of fear got easier to master: the fear of the unknown. The rest of the symptoms, however, still wrought havoc on him.

Of all the people to come across him like that, it was Zahlia. Orion twitched his eyes down the hall, aware of the dark presence drawing closer to him. His eyes locked on her face and lingered there in a way he might not have dared under normal circumstances. He blinked several times to gain control of himself and wrenched his head to face forward again. He breathed in and got maybe halfway through the breath before it exploded out of him in a rush.

Zahlia paused halfway down the hall. He expected her to turn and leave—wouldn't have blamed her, might have even been happy for it, but after a chunk of time he couldn't hope to measure, she continued to approach him. Orion tried to close his eyes to center himself, but robbing himself of his sense of sight only made the tightness in his chest worse. So he opened his eyes again, stared out over the balcony to the rows of rooms on the other side, and focused on sounding like breathing was secondary to him and not some new, creative form of torture.

Zahlia drew level with him and, after a moment, pressed her back against the hallway and turned herself to face the same direction that he was looking. She didn't stare, didn't crowd him, and for a long moment all they did was share silence.

"Is it your father?" she finally asked.

Orion could count the number of conversations they'd had since Zeke's death without any effort. The number was painfully small. All he managed in return was a nod. The quiet stretched out a bit longer and Orion finally unstuck his throat long enough to assure her Fremont hadn't actually died, which she might assume if he carried on this way. "He's just… getting worse."

He saw her nod from the corner of his eye. "I'm sorry."

Even though he'd just used it, he suddenly had a hard time finding his voice. "N-nothing you should be s-sorry for." A detached wonder drifted through him. It had also been years since he'd stuttered like that, but it was an unavoidable byproduct of the shuddering weakness deep inside his chest. He squeezed his eyes shut again, ignoring the discomfort it caused him. He needed the darkness behind his eyelids right now.

"I know," Zahlia's voice said, grounding him just a little, centering him by tiny degrees. "But I'm sorry this is happening all the same."

Orion chuckled, a broken thing, and pulled in a breath. A little more than half of it reached him this time. He focused hard on speaking; it was a skill he'd have to relearn at some point. "There's nothing any of us can do. I know that. I've known it for a while." Apparently those three short sentences had been been too much for him, because the next breath he pulled in was a sharp, jagged one. He clapped a hand over his mouth as if he could retroactively stifle it. Shame heated his ears.

But he refused to stop now that he'd started. "No one has any idea where it's all kept. Who would even be able to get there?" Orion wasn't sure what he was doing—talking himself into a decision he knew would haunt him for the rest of his life? Saving their evidence rather than sparing his father for a few more months? "We've got Gym Leaders, two members of—" His breath broke in his throat again. "—the PLF, but we don't have anyone with insider—" Sometimes his stuttering wasn't the repetition of the first sound of a word over and over again, but a crawling silence while his voice tried to form the word at all. That was what he did now. "… Information," he finally spat out. "About the Nakawa Syndicate. We can't—"

Even though his eyes were shut, and even though he was about as distracted as a person could be, he was so keyed into the girl beside him that when she went rigid and still, he sensed it at once. His eyes snapped open and then over to her, and he read the electric realization on her face so clearly.

"No," Zahlia said, seeming to force the word out. "We do."

Bewildered, his head swimming, Orion kept his eyes on her as she pieced together the last of her thoughts. He knew he blend of alpha gene and panic would have any Pokémon in the area dropping to the ground in a dead faint, but Zahlia just looked at him, finally, her normally difficult to read face bright with hope and excitement.

"My mother. She knows—or if she doesn't, she'll know someone who does. Come."

And with no hesitation, without a touch of the painful discomfort they had endured for so many months, she reached out and grabbed his hand. She tugged him, a gentle but insistent motion, and he came away from the wall easily, as if she had the strength of a hundred men. Zahlia pulled him behind her, down the hall to her room, and Orion followed, helpless in her wake.

* * *

"I do," Nancy Nakawa's voice said from across the distance, Zahlia's phone held aloft in her hand. "I can't say how much she knows, but I do have someone who can help. I'll go to her tonight."

A part of Orion didn't want to put Nancy out that way at half past eleven, but another part of him knew his father didn't have the luxury of time if this was going to save his life.

"Thank you," Zahlia said, and Orion managed to echo her sentiment a moment later.

" _Thank you,_ Nancy." His voice was a tragic wreck, and shame and self-loathing rose hot in him. How could he dare to ask this favor of the woman whose son he had killed?

But if Nancy held any ill-will toward him, none of it translated into her tone. "Of course. If I can find her I will come by with her first thing in the morning. If nothing else, we debrief then, yeah?"

"Yes," Zahlia said, nodding though her mother couldn't see it. "Yes, that sounds perfect. We'll see you then, mom."

"I should just move in by now, yeah?" Nancy added with a quiet chuckle, but a moment later they said their goodbyes. Orion could picture the frail older woman bundling herself up against the chill, more like she was heading into a snow drift than a cool evening, before she headed off into the night.

Zahlia lowered her phone and turned to Orion, her eyes hard and gleaming, still full of that sharp-edged hope, but also tinged with worry. The foundation that made up Orion Fremont crumbled into the sea.

He pulled her into his arms and folded her up against him. So slight was she it felt like she'd disappear into him.

" _Zahlia,_ " he croaked out above her head, his voice in pieces.

"I know," she whispered.

"I'm so sorry."

"I know," she said, this time with volume in her voice. Her arms came around him hard and he buried his face against the side of her hair. His whole body wracked itself with shudders.

She crushed him to her and they both tried not to fall over, holding one another up. Orion trembled, hard, and Zahlia's face pressed hot against the front of his shirt, then damp. His eyes stung so terribly it was like they'd never done a thing other than look out upon the world. Then impossibly hot tears cut down his cheeks.

She didn't tell him that it wasn't his fault. She didn't tell him that he deserved all of this, either. She just stayed with him while he tried and failed to rebuild his bedrock, watching his castles of sand wash away again with each wave.


	18. Turn the Tables :Gina:

Pokémon Azure

Chapter 18: Turn the Tables

(Gina Ikeda)

"Okay, I looked just like you when we went to visit Armstrong," Kaylee said, casting Gina a sidelong look behind large sunglasses. She flashed her a grin. "And I'll tell you what Gav told me. Try not to look like you're going to puke all over my shoes. It's cool. We'll blend in fine."

"Gav told you not to puke all over his shoes?" Gina asked, incredulous, but a smile twitched out over her face.

Kaylee wrinkled her nose and stuck out her tongue. "Details."

The girls didn't bother touristing it up, beelining instead for the nondescript Gym. Though Gina's nerves were evidently making her look queasy, she had to admit Kaylee was probably right. The best way to be inconspicuous was to act completely normal.

"We can't break the streak, okay?" Kaylee told her, nudging Gina in the ribs with her elbow. "Beth and Blake got Cerulean done in one day, Victoria and Amaris did Celadon in one day."

"Great… you jinxed us," Gina fired back. Kaylee tossed her head back and laughed, completely unafraid of drawing attention, and Gina did her best to join in and loosen the knot of nerves in her chest.

The girls slipped into the Cinnabar Island Gym and that hateful wave of sauna-hot air hit Gina square in the face again. "Oh god dammit," she groaned, grateful she had a bandana to help catch the sweat that would start prickling her skin any second. "I'd forgotten how miserable it was in here."

"Hooo-wee," Kaylee said, stretching her arms out and squinting. "I mean this is _great_ to me, but I see what you mean."

Gina sketched a theatrical bow as if thanking Kaylee for her kind and merciful judgment, and Kaylee grinned at her before jogging down the hallway.

"Wait!" Gina called. Kaylee danced around the touchscreen panel that slid out of the wall, but it almost checked her in the hip. Gina covered her face to stifle a laugh. "Yeah… there are all these questions everywhere. I mean, you can forfeit the questions, or randomly guess them, but if you answer wrong you fight his Gym Aide."

"Serious?" Kaylee asked of no one. "Well, that's okay. Luckily I know everything there is to know about Cinnabar Island."

"Oh _do_ you?" Gina asked, eyebrows arching. "See, that's what A thought, too, and _that's_ how we ended up fighting Lowell."

"Ooh, first-name basis with the Gym Aide!" Kaylee remarked, waggling her eyebrows. "That's promising!"

Gina snorted at her, but was more than happy to let Kaylee take point on all the touch-screen quizzes. To her dismay, the questions had changed since the last time she'd been there, and she griped bitterly once she realized this.

Kaylee, however, blasted straight through them with no trouble at all. When she correctly identified which mayor was responsible for putting an end to virtually all burglary and vandalism that had plagued the Pokémon Mansion for decades, Gina gaped at her.

"Who in the _world_ would _know_ that?" she asked. "Seriously? Who?"

"This girl, that's who," Kaylee said, chucking double thumbs back at her own grinning face.

Gina snorted. "So I'm guessing you're gonna retire to Cinnabar when you're old and crusty, just like the rest of Kanto?"

Kaylee opened her mouth to retort, but before she could her phone buzzed against her leg. Kaylee tugged it out and grinned at once. She answered without hesitation, so Gina knew whoever it was likely wouldn't be bearing bad news.

"Yo!" Kaylee said into the phone, and Gina heard a low, rumbling voice dimly from the other side. It had to be Armstrong. "Yeah. Uh-huh," Kaylee said, rolling her eyes on the second part and lolling her head over to give Gina an exasperated look. It was amazing how expressive she could still be while wearing sunglasses. She'd failed to take them off once they'd come indoors, and Gina reached out to pluck them off her face. Kaylee gave her a scandalized look and put a hand over her heart as if mortally offended, but continued talking to Armstrong.

"Yeah, uh-huuuh," she said, dragging that last one out so long there could be no doubt of her skepticism. Gina heard a _hey_ from the other end of the line and Kaylee snorted and pulled her phone back. She started fiddling with the buttons and Gina recognized she was about to be pulled into a videophone call with the Pewter City Gym Leader.

Armstrong's rugged, heavily-bearded face popped into view a moment later, and Kaylee grinned like a caricature of herself, waving exuberantly. Gina smiled sheepishly and lifted her hand beside her.

"Greetings from the Cinnabar Island Gym," Kaylee said, quickly sliding the phone behind her in an arc so Armstrong could see the interior of the Gym.

"Hold the phone!" Armstrong barked out. "I mean literally, hold the damned phone still, you really think I could see anything you just did? Waving it around like a lunatic?"

"Whine whine complain," Kaylee fired back, but they fell quickly into lighter discussion, the way family did. Kaylee called him a momma hen, he said _damn right,_ and Gina, without meaning to, faded into the background.

There was a tightness in her chest that she tried first to uproot and eradicate and then, failing that, at least tried to mask. She managed a few chuckles here and there, but lost track of most of the conversation. She only wound up keying back in when she knew it was coming to an end.

"Your bro chargin' y'all for these fancy upgrades?" he asked.

"He is paid in small breaks from my constant torment," Kaylee replied with significance. "Anyway we gotta run, k? I'll call ya once we've got this one in the bag." Armstrong snorted, called her cheeky, and hung up.

Gina had ample warning to master her expression, but the instant Kaylee glanced her way she knew that her smile was a little too stiff. Kaylee's expression showed it the second she knew something was wrong with Gina, her whole face falling, clear worry etched across her features. Gina internally winced and opened her mouth to hem off the questions.

"Nuh-uh," Kaylee said, and Gina let her excuse die in her throat. There really wasn't any point.

"I just," she said, tossing up a shrug, "I guess I'm a little… homesick." She admitted it only haltingly, like it was something shameful. "I mean, I'm happy," she quickly added, lifting both hands. She didn't want to take this away from Kaylee. "I'm so happy that you and G get to talk to him again. I mean—it must have been awful… getting all those messages. At least with my mom? She knew we were okay—I mean, because we were in her house there at the end, before we had to…" It was so hard to talk about this vaguely enough to avoid incriminating themselves. "So—I'm happy for you. Really I am. I guess… I just wish I could do the same," she finished, shrugging again and feeling remarkably lame.

Kaylee tucked Gina up against her side in a half-hug,. "I get you," she said. "I still feel bad, but I get you. Hey, wanna see something dumb?" she quickly added, and Gina grinned.

" _Always,_ " she said, and the two girls huddled next to each other, only one touch-screen away from Avery. Gina peered over Kaylee's arm at a group text on her phone that included herself, Tim, Casey and Nick.

"See like, right here?" Kaylee asked, tapping the screen. "I tried to type 'boyfriend' and it autocorrected to 'boyfriend _s_.'" She put emphasis on the plural.

Gina's face lit up in understanding and she gave an "oh-ho- _ho_."

me: *boyFRIEND omg

T: whoa whoa whoa wait what now?

C: LOLOL

N: YOUR SECRET IS OUT, K

me: i hate you

T: orrrr maybe there's just several of me?

T: wait

T: that's kind of horrifying

N: nope

N: this is a thing now

N: i deem it so

N: so it is and so it shall be

C: I hereby name you the Collective Entity Known as Tim

C: shit T*

me: IS CYBER SECURITY A JOKE TO YOU CASEY

me: SHIT

T: AHAHAHAHA

C: (otherwise known as CEKAT)

N: LONG LIVE CEKAT

C: CEKAT FOR MAYOR 2050

Gina snorted loudly into her sleeve and Kaylee, through peals of giggles, scrolled farther down.

"No, I mean, it's _still going on, it's still a thing, look._ " She scrolled through several more lines until the message indicated a day had passed.

N: CEKAT

T: we are here

K: holy balls you guys are such extreme dorks

C: X-Treeeme Dorks

N: now with 50% more dork!

C: and electrolytes!

N: yeah those too why tf not

N: AND WHEY PROTEIN

C: YEYUH

Gina was still suffering from aftershock giggles when they made it through the last section of hallway into the Leader arena. Remembering, with sudden clarity, Avery's fondness of traipsing around shirtless wearing only his fluffy white chest hair, Gina turned to give Kaylee a heads up—but was a little too late.

Avery popped out from the back of his arena, wearing what had to be the exact same outfit Gina had seen him in the first time they'd visited. There was the handlebar moustache, the long beard held in a beard-ponytail and the swim shorts. He still hadn't found a pair of shoes he got along with and still apparently felt shirts were beneath him. It was oddly comforting to Gina that he'd stayed so much the same in a world that was anything but constant.

"Both of you fighting today, or just one'a'ya?" he asked, not bothering with theatrics or preamble. Gina imagined he might try a little harder with the brand new Initiates, but when faced with two girls in the later part of their teens, he must not have felt the need. Yet his eyes locked on her and narrowed, for all the world like he was trying to place a familiar face. Gina's heart sank into her stomach.

Kaylee, on the other hand, was absolutely awestruck. "Uh, not a trainer battle, sir. Although—gosh, I'd love to take you up on that _after."_

Avery frowned and tilted his head, giving them both some major side-eye. "Y'ain't selling anything, are ya?" he asked, clearly unhappy with that idea.

"No!" Kaylee assured him. "We actually want to talk to you—about something really important." Gina, more than happy to let Kaylee take the lead, served as silent backup. She only hoped she'd stopped looking queasy. "See, we're friends of James Dasten," Kaylee began. "We met him through Tim Broome."

Gina wasn't sure if Kaylee simply couldn't read the expressions filtering across Avery's face, but to her it was painfully obvious. He was now the proud owner of several shiny new misgivings. Kaylee went on.

"My team is working on bringing to light several far-reaching strings of crime and illegal activity—"

Avery lifted a hand and, just like that, Kaylee stopped. It was as if he'd used Disable on her vocal chords. "Hold the phone," he said, and it was remarkable how different those three words sounded from how Armstrong had playfully used them. "I know who you are," he said.

Gina half-expected Kaylee's face to perk up, like this was a good thing and would save her explanation time, but the other girl seemed to realize that this was going south. She opened her mouth to speak but he cut her off again.

"You're the team of vandals who trashed the labs and somehow convinced Dasten—who I've known almost all his life, I should mention—that sheltering fugitives and going on the run was a better use of his time than doing his job."

 _Oh shit,_ Gina thought, her heart moving now into the region of her knees and rattling back and forth.

"It's—" Kaylee started, her voice a little weak, "not quite _that_ straightforward. I mean—"

"Oh, it looks pretty straightforward from where I'm standing," Avery said, crossing his arms tightly over his fluffy chest hair.

Gina desperately wanted to retreat, regroup and come back later, but Kaylee set her jaw in an expression Gina knew all too well.

"Sir, please—you gotta at least hear us out—"

"I don't 'gotta' do anything," Avery said, taking a step forward. "Trust me, telling me what I 'gotta' do is not endearing me to your 'cause.' Whatever the hell that may be. You want to get on my good side? Walk on outta here before I call the police." It struck Gina as weird that he wouldn't turn them over to the authorities if he truly thought they were in the wrong, but at this point it felt like grasping at straws.

Kaylee tried one last valiant time. "Please, sir, we're in touch with Dasten, and he's the one who told us to come see you."

"Oh, did he?" Avery drawled out, clearly unimpressed.

"He said you'd be upset," Gina added, needing to say something. "And we completely understand—we do. I know it won't undo the damage we did, but if you'd let us explain, we can tell you our reasons."

"Or," Avery said, conversationally. "You can _go_. Before I call. The. Police." He stretched out each word clearly and slowly, and Gina knew they'd lost round one.

"We'll be back," Kaylee promised, managing to make it almost sound like a threat.

"Yeah, don't," Avery called after them, and the girls slipped out into the hallway, doing everything but running past the touch-screens.

"Well," Kaylee grumbled, her voice surly but also sheepish. "I guess at least he didn't call the cops. I mean, he could've."

"That's—" Gina said, panting a little in the oppressive heat. "Isn't that like saying 'well, that was 99% horrible but at least it wasn't a solid hundo?"

Kaylee groaned and pressed her palms into her eyes. "Guess we're breaking the lucky streak."

* * *

They booked a room at an in. They didn't need to, but Gina for one didn't much feel like returning home empty-handed. The room they were given was boasted as the best in the inn, available only because there weren't hoards of Initiates flooding through Cinnabar at the moment.

"Best view in town!" the innkeeper assured them with a satisfied grin. "Got a clear line of sight straight to the Gym."

Gina held back her groan until Kaylee and she were safely shut inside their room. They whiled away the time brainstorming better approaches to get the less-than-thrilled Gym Leader on their side, and both turned in early—or at least laid down in their twin beds, staring at the ceiling, and made a show of winding down for the night. Gina was sure neither of them was going to fall off effortlessly into slumber.

As evening gathered itself into twilight and then the beginning of true dusk, the glowing rectangle of Kaylee's phone grew more and more prominent to Gina's right. She rolled her head to the side to look Kaylee's way and smiled at her friend, who was texting so much and so frequently she wondered how her recipients even had time to reply. Her lower lip was caught between her teeth in a perpetual, semi-stifled grin and every several minutes her body wracked with silent laughter.

At some point Kaylee turned to get comfortable on her side and caught Gina staring. "What?"

Gina shook her head. "Nothing. Just glad to see you happy. That Tim?"

"Yeah," Kaylee said, then groaned. "I'm regaling him with the tragic story of our failure."

"Our temporary setback," Gina corrected.

"Oh, so it's not 99% horrible anymore?"

"No, it's still pretty horrible. But we'll turn the tables tomorrow. Tell Tim I say hey."

"Will do," Kaylee said, and shot off a message dutifully. She lowered her phone onto her chest, screen down, temporarily casting the room into semi-complete darkness. It buzzed a second later and Gina smirked. "I also, um… don't think I ever really and officially thanked you for letting me… let everyone else know on my own terms."

It took Gina a second to figure out what she meant. "Oh!" she said, not bothering to mask the surprise in her voice. "Aw jeez, Kay, you don't have to thank me for that. Of course."

Though Kaylee's phone buzzed again to remind her that she had an unread text, she didn't pull her phone back up. It was dark to the point that turning on a lamp would make sense if they were going to continue their conversation, but neither girl moved to do so. Blanketed in the comforting darkness, secure in their illusion of safety, they let the silence go for a bit.

Kaylee finally cleared her throat after several long minutes of this. "So… how are things with you?"

Gina frowned at the ceiling. "With me?"

"I mean," Kaylee added quickly. Her sudden return to fumbling told Gina this topic might be an uncomfortable one. "With Jason." She was right. "The last time we talked about him was in VR and, well."

Gina wanted to reply right away, to have a response locked and loaded for such a situation, but in truth this subject had brought her up short. She remained silent for a long time—far too long, and she could almost sense Kaylee's apology rising up in the other girl's throat.

"We… haven't officially talked about it," Gina began, carefully and slowly. She didn't know why she was afraid to be honest about this. "Something… almost happened, I think. Once."

She heard the rustling of the blankets beside her and knew Kaylee had rolled over to face her in the dark. "Oh?"

Gina blew out a sigh along with her "yeah." She recognized the ball was still in her court and thanked Kaylee in her head for letting her come to terms with this topic on her own time.

"I really don't know what… to do, there. I feel like something _could_ happen. But I also feel like it shouldn't. Does that make sense?"

She knew the answer before Kaylee gave it. "Honestly? Not a whole lot."

Gina smiled softly, appreciating her friend's honesty. "Sorry. Lemme try again." She lifted her hands to run them across her face, but wound up just staring at the dim outlines of her fingers against the flat black backdrop. "It's just—not… right." Surely she would win the award for Most Halting Statement of the Year. "Not right… now, anyway. Maybe not ever? I can't think of a better way to explain it." She blew out a breath and lowered her hands to finally do what she'd intended. She scrubbed at her eyes, wishing she felt more tired than she was. "We could… try? Probably? Edith's…" Her voice tightened in her and prickling sprang to life behind her eyes. Feeling ambushed by herself—she hadn't realized she was going to bring Edith up at all—Gina swallowed hard. "We have no idea where Edith is. If she was going to come back, she'd have done it by now. You know?"

Kaylee took a moment to respond, and when she did her voice was thick with feeling. "Yeah."

Feeling bad for bringing up their erstwhile hostess, Gina tried to steer away from those waters. "It's—more than that, though. It's not just Edith. It's Jason. It's _me._ It's just—"

But Kaylee interrupted, and Gina was weakly grateful for it. "It's okay. You don't have to explain. If it's not right, it's not right."

They settled back down into a second silence, but it was different from the first. There was no judgment in Kaylee, or if there was, it was all out in the open. She wasn't the kind to silently hold onto her opinions, doling them out like a miser, saying one thing and whispering something different behind her back. Gina smiled softly and was hit anew with the powerful, pure love she felt for her, and for all of them—that sure and steady knowledge that she'd do anything at all to keep them safe.

"You know what's important right now?" Gina asked, her voice a lot quieter and more thoughtful than the statement seemed to call for. "Recruiting Avery. You know what else is important? Prepping for Seafoam so we don't get slaughtered." She gave a wry chuckle on those last few words. "And you know what's _not_ important? Relationship statuses."

Kaylee huffed out a breath of a laugh too, but followed up with a sigh. "Truer words were never spoken, G. I didn't mean to make it sound like I thought any of those things were more important. I guess just, sometimes it's nice to talk about things that _aren't_ life threatening. You know?"

Gina smiled and rolled over to face Kaylee. She could barely make out the main features of her face in the dark—just two smudges for her eyes and an indication of where her nose and mouth were, nothing concrete. "I totally get that. And it is nice."

They enjoyed another silence, but before long Kaylee cleared her throat to break it. Once again Gina's intuition pinged her. Kaylee wasn't exactly subtle when she was getting ready to breach a difficult subject—she was absolutely full of tells and Gina, also full of tells, felt her pain.

"I mean—just. To put it on your radar? I mean, in case it wasn't?" Kaylee started, and Gina thought she had a strong contender threatening her win for Most Halting Statement of the Year. "It might sound weird, but. Well." Kaylee tried to shrug while lying on her side, which didn't look like it was very successful. "Well. There's Amaris."

When Kaylee had brought up Jason, Gina had wished she'd had a reply locked and loaded and ready to go in case the topic blindsided her. There was absolutely no way she could have prepared for this. She wasn't aware her thoughts had a presence in her mind until they were absolutely gone. The quiet bustle and warm liveliness of stray recollections or musings disappeared without a trace, and all Gina was left with was utterly stunned gray static.

She was quiet for so long Kaylee asked, "Fall asleep on me?"

Gina shook her head against her pillow. "No, just… calibrating."

Kaylee said no more and Gina shifted her eyes down to the bedspread below her, turning her thoughts—or what was left of them—inward. A large part of her wanted to ask Kaylee where in the world she had gotten that idea. Yet, now that she was unpacking it, the shock was genuine, yes, but it was starting to taste more like the surprise she felt when someone read her a story she'd written herself at three years old. It felt like something she'd taken pains to put on paper, marked as important, and then forgotten so completely over the years that it felt like new information when it was parroted back to her later. It was only after those first fumbling pages that the familiar flavors of the idea started to emerge.

She wanted to ask Kaylee, but she was almost afraid of the answer. She hadn't been able to see Jason's "painfully obvious" desire for a surrogate parent relationship with Lance. How much more had she not seen that others had?

Her absent thoughts rushed back, tumbling over themselves, creating an abject, jumbled mess and all jockeying to be first in line. They were all out of order, pieces of data and reels of memory. Her hand against Amaris' face in the cold waiting area before she'd pleaded for him to let her fight Olivia first. The look he'd given her, lifting his newly-won Thunder Badge overhead, turning for the first time an annoying and teasing gesture into an inside joke. It became something warm and comfortable, old and fond, yet somehow also exciting and new. They'd stayed up all night talking.

But then his face flashed across her mind—the way he'd looked after Pallet, still bandaged and broken, unable even to lean against a wall for the healing burns on his back. She saw him bristle like a cornered animal, snapping at her, drawing his line in the sand and then erecting his walls over the line, just to be safe. It was as if he reminded her in no uncertain terms of precisely where they stood. She could be a friend and an ally, but never reach him beyond that in any meaningful way. All of his interactions would forever be on his terms.

A large part of her knew that, in the aftermath of Pallet, she could not have expected a better reaction from him. She could never blame him for his lashing out, after what he'd seen. But it hadn't gotten better, and he'd continued to retreat.

Gina almost forgot she was supposed to give Kaylee some sort of answer. When she did, it was painfully halting, securing her the win again.

"I don't… know what's… there. I can't really… detangle that? Yet."

Kaylee must have been formulating and fine-tuning her own response while Gina was agonizing, because it came quick. "I get it. I just figured I should say something. I mean, sometimes I get the impression that he…? But hell, I could be wrong. Well… yeah." Kaylee rolled back over onto her back and her phone buzzed on her chest again. "Anyway, I'm not great with these things."

Gina's laugh was so sudden it turned into one of her snorts. Kaylee snapped her head back to look her way and grinned.

"You think I _am_?" Gina asked.

Kaylee laughed, probably a little too loud for their neighbors. "At least we're not as bad as Gav," she pointed out. She lifted her phone again, light flooding the room, and Gina took that as a sign that the heavy-lifting was done. Her chest loosened in relief, and the sigh she let out finally made her properly sleepy.

"I take solace in that," she said, softly. "We'll never be as bad as Gav."


	19. Promising :Zahlia:

Pokémon Azure

Chapter 19: Promising

(Zahlia Nakawa)

Zahlia woke at the first gentle touch of dawn with Orion curled around her.

His arms were latched around her waist, his face buried in her abdomen, and she wondered how he'd managed to sleep through what had to be pins and needles in the arm trapped beneath her. It was a wonder he was still sleeping at all. He'd always been a fitful dozer without the aid of Dream Eater, but now he was dead to the world.

Zahlia stayed still for several minutes so as not to wake him. It was easy to feel they had all the time in the world, here in this long stolen moment, everything dyed peaches and cream with the early morning light.

Eventually she couldn't help herself and brushed her fingers gently through his pale, rumpled hair. She expected him to snap to at once—maybe even jolt awake angry or aggressive. He was usually so ready for a fight, so persistently on edge.

Instead one blue eye opened slowly and the other one followed it extremely late. He looked up into her face as if genuinely lost, like in no version of reality could he reconcile being here with her. It looked like he wondered if he was still sleeping, so Zahlia kissed him to let him know he was awake.

When she pulled back his eyes stayed closed for a long second before sliding open to meet hers again. "I kind of… last night almost didn't feel real."

Zahlia smiled, slow and warm. "I know." She realized the moment she spoke that the last three things she had said to him had all been I know.

Orion spotted the thought flicker across her face and smiled. She knew with certainty that he'd come to the same conclusion. They smiled at one another, uncertain but completely genuine for it.

"Sky's blue," Orion commented.

"Yes… yes it is." Zahlia stifled a smile, largely unsuccessful.

Orion wrinkled his nose a little. "I set you up so perfectly for that last 'I know.'"

"I've got to keep you guessing, don't I?"

A text buzzed through on her phone and the moment wasn't broken, but put on hold. Orion released her from the circle of his embrace and she rolled over to scoop her phone up from where it sat on the bedside table, nearly out of battery.

The message was from her mother. we're back

"They're here," she said. As a unit they rolled out of bed, clumsily piecing themselves together and throwing one another their socks and jackets, bells and whistles. Zahlia caught Orion rolling his shoulder and smiled. So it had gone to sleep on him after all.

There was no way to hide the fact that Orion and Zahlia emerged from the same room, but her mother didn't do more than lift her eyebrows in a brief, questioning glance. Zahlia gave her a tight smile that served as a promise they'd talk later, and shifted her gaze instead to the woman who accompanied Nancy Nakawa.

She had known the moment her mother said "she" that her contact was Janine Otsuka. Still, there was a tiny, disconnected element of disbelief. The older woman rolled a plastic suitcase behind her, swiveling it around and propping it up before slapping the extendable handle down.

Orion hesitated for only a second at the top of the stairs. Then he practically sprinted down them five at a time with his long stride. Janine tipped the suitcase over and laid it gently on its back, then popped three clasps open and hauled the lid off. Orion and Zahlia had drawn level with her by the time she pulled out one of three smaller plastic cases from within and held it aloft.

Orion met her gaze, so much more vulnerable and uncertain than Zahlia could remember seeing him in so long, and Janine lifted the smaller case at him in an impatient gesture.

"Go on. Open it. See if this looks like what you're used to."

Orion's hands fumbled on the latches and Zahlia savored it. She knew she ought to feel bad for delighting in the return of his clumsiness, but she'd thought it was gone forever. He lifted the lid and four glowing blue syringes were the reward for his efforts. Orion's face crumbled into exhausted relief.

"That's not all of it, either," Janine said matter-of-factly. "We have another three boxes after these ones."

Zahlia was burning with curiosity about how the hell she'd managed to get her hands on that much Factor A, but they could debrief later. With Fremont degenerating by the minute they needed to get this to him now.

"I don't know what to say," Orion said, closing the lid and redoing the latches. Emotion was thick in his voice.

"Don't say anything, just take it." Janine deposited the case unceremoniously into his arms before turning to Nancy. The pair of them lapsed into rapid conversation in Nancy's mother tongue. Zahlia only recognized every fifth or so word.

Orion was halfway to the stairs when Zahlia caught up with him. "Do you want me to come with you?" she asked, stopping him in his tracks with just a hasty sentence. Half the time even her friends had to ask Zahlia to repeat herself, so soft-spoken was she, but Orion never did. Even from the beginning he'd hung on her every word, effortlessly picking up everything she put out into the world. Now was no different. His hesitation didn't stem from not hearing her, but simple uncertainty.

Zahlia layered on a better explanation. "I may not know your father well, but I think I understand how he works to a degree. I imagine he'll think you're sentimental, wanting to save his life because you're his son. I'm a—" She paused. "Not a neutral party, exactly, but…"

She trailed off because she could see understanding alighting Orion's face. He let out a breath and his shoulders lost a little of their tension. "But you can help me get it through his staggeringly thick skull. Yes. Thank you." He gave her his smile—the lopsided one that was almost always coupled with a gentle furrow of his brows. Her heart thudded painfully in her chest with the best possible ache.

Nathan Fremont was awake when they entered. He was halfway through a glass of water and nearly choked on it when not only his eldest son but a girl who'd never once visited him appeared without warning. He cleared his throat, set the glass aside with a trembling hand, and gave them a suspicious, honestly humorous sidelong look. "It's a little old-fashioned to ask for my blessing, you know."

Zahlia recognized that the wry joke was meant to put them on their guard and keep them off-balance, and she refused to rise to the occasion. Orion, equally aware what this was, rolled his eyes. "Dad. That's not what this is."

"The fuck is this, then?" Fremont demanded, apparently done with niceties.

Orion lifted the case, which had been hanging out of sight by his side, and showed it to his father. The surprise on the older man's face lasted for only a moment before melting into anger. "Where did you get that?" he asked, a low, murderous warning in his tone.

"Janine," Orion responded. "I don't know the details, because we brought it straight up here."

"I'm not taking that." The response was so quick, complete and without any room for negotiation that Zahlia had to fight to keep her expression impassive.

Orion was not able to do the same. His face pulled into a clear portrait of enraged bewilderment. "Excuse me?"

"Save the thrice-damned, toxic shit. I've already blown through damn near a full case." Fremont turned to look at the wall, a desire to get up and physically leave the room written all over his agitated posture. Zahlia guessed it was only the weakness in his limbs that prevented him from acting on it.

"She's got more where this came from," Orion snarled.

"Yeah," Fremont replied, snide sarcasm heavy in the single word. "Not going to happen."

Orion's voice had started loud and only got more deadly and focused. "Why the hell not? There are neater, more elegant ways to off yourself if you have a death wish."

It was time for Zahlia to interject, and she cut in smoothly. If there was one thing she was used to, it was alpha-gene-induced rage fests. "Mr. Fremont." He groaned loudly at the use of that honorific and she ignored it. "There's no reason to refuse this. If you get your strength back it means you are one more combatant on hand when we need you. And we will need you."

Fremont grit his teeth hard. "Show it to me," he snapped at his son. Orion threw the case back open and practically shoved it at the man. Neither was cowed by the other and Fremont snatched the case and stared down hatefully into the contents.

It only took him a second to discern whatever he was looking for. "It's the weaker formula." For a crazy second Zahlia thought he was actually criticizing the miracle they'd managed to procure, but then threw the lid shut, clasped it, and shoved it back across his legs. "So we've got another few years then, if I stretch it and don't get back into top shape? One year, if I take what I need to be taking? The goal is to destroy this stuff, completely and utterly, not a trace left. I'm dependent on it and I can't live a life without it. I'd rather just go out on my own terms."

Orion snorted, the sound so dark, bitter and derisive that it was hard to remember how much of his old self she had seen filtering through just moments before. But then he spoke, and she understood.

"People all over the world need medication to continue living. Yours is just harder to get. You don't get to throw the chess board, you don't get to check out early. You don't like it? It's too hard?" The last two questions were delivered with such brutal, mocking condescension that Zahlia saw Fremont's blue eyes widen in that unmistakable AGER affront. Orion let the pause stretch, maintaining perfect, unbroken eye contact with his father.

"Get the fuck over it," he finally said, and his father was the first to look away.

A powerful surge of pride nearly took Zahlia off her feet. It was hard to reconcile the Orion that existed beside her now with the one she had first met, but she was starting to relearn him. There were glimpses of his old self she could coax out occasionally, and she would forever cherish those moments. But the old Orion existed in this moment too, with more bite, more backbone, using a sharp edge to carve away anything that could hurt the people he loved.

The pride was punched through with another, nearly overwhelming urge to drag Orion away somewhere so they could be alone. Zahlia took a steadying breath, calmed herself, and slipped out of the room so Orion could finish giving his father his first full dose of Factor A in months.

* * *

"It's a mess," Janine said. "I should start from the very beginning or I'll just have to back-track."

"That's fine," Victoria said, and shot a glance around the living room that instantaneously quieted the gathered others. They'd made impressive time assembling, even their most notorious late-risers bringing at least their bodies (if not yet their brains) to the meeting.

Zahlia had completely forgotten that Nick and Toby were scheduled to clock some hours in with the tech table this morning. Blake's father and Nancy were now pointedly not looking at each other, seated as far apart as they could get. When she met Blake's eyes across the room the tiny wince in his eye was as clear as if he'd tap-danced out the message to her. This is going to be uncomfortable.

Janine cleared her throat. "I'm starting with PLF background." There were some nods and murmurs, but almost instantly Jason stood up, interrupting the flow.

"I… will be right back," he said, taking a few steps backward, but when he got more questioning glances, he explained. "Just… Lance. We left him out once before. He'll probably mutiny if we do it again." There were a couple snorts and chuckles, but Jason was given leave to bolt off and collect the Dragonmaster.

Zahlia thought about sending Orion a message to let him know they were starting in earnest, but he had his phone on him and surely must have received Victoria's summons. Whatever he was doing up in his father's room was taking precedence.

Janine didn't bother waiting for the Fremont brothers and Lance to return. "The PLF has been around for decades. Some of the founding members even knew the real Red and Blue, in their time." Zahlia caught the way Amaris' eyes lidded so heavily they were in danger of falling shut with the sheer weight of his skepticism, but thankfully he said nothing. "We've been fighting this fight for generations. The core leadership is small, but our reach is larger than you may think. We have satellite members who check in electronically… a way to contact each other through websites." Her gaze tracked to Gav. "You're familiar with this?"

"The 'Rocker' codewords, yes," Gav said. "We're all aware of that part."

Janine nodded. "Several of those members never attend in-person meetings at all, but are part of our… web." She emphasized the last word with a bit of disdain, and Zahlia wasn't sure how to read that. "What I'm getting at," Janine continued, "is that an organization like that doesn't get to where they are by being reckless."

That was an ominous choice of words with a number of strange implications, but just then Mrs. Broome emerged holding her tea tray. It was unthinkably full, and even with the cream, sugar, and some of the pastry trays held by other Pokémon, it looked in danger of tipping at any second. No fewer than six of them rushed to help, and through their collective efforts drinks were distributed. Zahlia noticed, with a fond, impressed smile, that Mrs. Broome had thought to make Nancy's favorite tea from childhood. It had to be one Janine was fond of, too.

Sure enough, that was what the Gym Leader went for. She only blew on her cup once before taking an unflinching drag of what had to be molten liquid. Then she moved right along without hesitation. "The PLF saw you as a group of kids taking all their hard work and dashing it to pieces, essentially because you were short-sighted and impatient. I know this isn't news to any of you." There was a ripple of displeasure but not surprise around the group—a couple of mumbles, a couple of nods. "Of course, it can be argued that your short-sightedness and impatience was merely proactivity where our organization had stagnated."

Tim heaved a slow sigh. "I've had this argument with them more times than I can count."

Janine nodded to him in a surprisingly sympathetic way. "I relate," she said. "Even now, all I want is to get my claws into Nakawa. It's been my goal to take him down since I met Nancy when we were girls. I know his alibis are airtight. He has certain Gym Leaders, the Elite Four, members of the League, and his AGERS in his back pocket." This wasn't anything new to them, but Zahlia wondered if she'd ever get used to hearing her father spoken about this way. He was the boogeyman, an unholy demon, and a force of nature instead of a man who took his coffee black with a single cube of ice.

"When I was younger, I wanted to assassinate the fucker," Janine said. There was a small, stifled chuckle from Beth, who clearly hadn't expected the proper woman to speak so colorfully. "I understand now it wouldn't be so simple. Perhaps I would succeed, but then I would be arrested for murder. I'd have no proof. So I had to learn how to play the long game, and all my compatriots told me I was doing the right thing."

She turned to Amaris so suddenly that he twitched a little. "I'm sorry for telling you to stay out of it—you and your two friends. At the time I didn't think you'd do more than wind up dead."

Amaris frowned and lifted one shoulder. "I can understand why you felt that way."

"Half the time we feel that way," Blake added, earning a few rueful smiles.

"What Pallet proved to me is that you're enough of a threat to be targeted." She addressed this to all of them, her dark eyes tracking evenly from face to face, and here was the politician Zahlia had expected to see. Perhaps she preferred a quiet life, but Janine excelled at captivating an audience and getting a point across in a way that rang true. "Not only does that mean you need help, but it means you've been doing something right all along. You are the only ones to be publicly attacked in years for this reason."

"Lucky us…" Jason said from behind Zahila. At some point he'd returned, but not wanting to interrupt, had elected to remain standing rather than squish himself back to his seat. Lance was with him, also foregoing a seat per usual.

Janine glanced up to the Dragonmaster and he met her gaze, level and even. A surly understanding passed between them without so much as a head twitch of acknowledgment.

"At any rate," Janine said, "I had no idea that the three of them, or indeed any of the rest of you, had reached out to the PLF after I told the Initiates to…"

"To am-scray?" Beth asked with a tiny smile. She actually got the smallest of smirks out of Janine with that one, an instance of her social interaction prowess at play.

"In a manner of speaking. I found out from Wilhelm—that's Wilhelm Thomas Francis," she said, using his full name, and there were nods around the room to show everyone was tracking.

"I always wondered about that," Gav said. "Why WTF didn't tell you about us sooner—or why you didn't tell him."

Janine smirked. "Like I said, our organization has a large reach. Wilhelm and I barely spoke to one another on our best days. Our areas of expertise are worlds apart. I, of course, am a figure in the public eye and have to keep up appearances. I can't run off to meetings most of the time, whereas Wilhelm—"

"One hundred percent in hiding," Amaris supplied.

"So I found out about you from him. But that wasn't for a while. It was… fortuitous," she began slowly. "That you stole our fossil." There was uncomfortable shifting around the room, but Janine merely gave a bland smile. "I mean it. If you hadn't, the PLF would not have refocused its efforts towards getting its hands on Factor A. Obviously the fossil work was… no longer viable, so we switched gears."

"Sorry, but…" Tim began. "The PLF actually decided to do something? If I sound like I don't believe it… it's because I don't."

Janine gave him a tight-lipped smile, commiseration in her gaze. "As I said, everything changed after Pallet, not only for me, but for many of the others. The mere fact that they had me play such an active role in getting my hands on this," she said, twitching her chin toward the rolling suitcase, "is telling enough. Hitherto my job has been to put on a show. I focus the public's attention where the PLF needs it to be focused. I make the news look this way so they can do something covert somewhere else. In short, I've been an elaborate decoy. But I'm through with that. As for this—" She rolled the suitcase back out in front of her. "Our original plan was to try to use Wilhelm's old Silph access to get into the building and the underground area you and your friends described. He's still a missing person, but possessed his old card key. Of course, he'd never used it to try to get back into the company. There were failsafes, however… which we expected. The key had long since been deactivated. So plan A was out the window."

"As I mentioned," she continued, letting a sigh creep into her voice, "we have a large reach. One of our most valuable assets is a member of Silph personnel. One of our deepest undercover agents. It took years placing her in just the right situations to get her hired into the company we one day wished to take down. She's been undercover for the better part of a decade, but we knew we had to act."

Victoria let out a slow, low whistle. "So you had her use her card key access and together you found a way to get into the restricted area."

"Which means her cover's blown," Jason added, sounded a little hollowed out by that knowledge.

Janine nodded. "Yes. It was worth it in the end to get this."

Blake snorted. "And after all that you had to stroll up to the PLF uppers and say, 'Hey, you know all that Factor A we stole? We have to use it to keep this dude alive. LOL.'" Zahlia closed her eyes for just a moment, sometimes wishing her brother didn't have quite such a knack for cutting to the ugly heart of the issue.

"But hey! The upside is they stole a lot of it," Beth pointed out. "I mean, ideally? We'll have this all blown wide open before we have to go through even a chunk of it."

"Ideally, yes," Janine said. "But of course, we need a long-term plan for—"

Upstairs and down the hall a door opened and shut. Orion was finally exiting his father's room. His footsteps halted; he was no doubt aware that the talk downstairs had ceased. After a moment his distinctive tread picked up again.

"… For Fremont," Janine finished.

* * *

At the end of their debrief Zahlia's head felt full and reeling, but in the best possible way. It was a lot of information, but it needed to be shared, and she was relieved to hear some of the discussions trickle off into lighter subject matter.

Jason had asked after Awkward Guy (aka Cecil, aka the first trainer he had ever battled), and Janine divulged that he was in training to be a Junior Gym Aide in Fuchsia. He did have a Weedle in his roster, Jason recalled. Evidently it had since evolved into a Beedrill and served as one of his many Poison types. It made sense for another member of the PLF to be stationed nearby Janine so they could work in tandem, and to hear it said, Cecil and William Trentolds, who was due to arrive any minute now, were working on convincing the everyman members of the PLF to take more active roles then they had hitherto.

Zahlia's phone buzzed, not with a text message but a reminder to head to the greenhouse. Nick, Trentolds, Zahlia, Blake, Jason, Orion and Nancy were due to train together—the core group of angry Pokémon rehabilitators.

Zahlia knew she had to clock more hours into training the rest of Zeke's team, which was part of what today was for. Blake had stepped up to the plate admirably, working tirelessly with his half of their brother's roster in addition to dealing with his own Dream Eater difficulties. By comparison Zahlia felt like she was falling down on the job and resolved to do better.

Yet even with Trentolds, Nancy, Nick and Orion in place, each of them skilled at keeping disastrously damaged Pokémon at bay through one means or another, she still felt the hairs at her nape stand on end whenever the Arbok or the Alakazam was out. She knew it was something she had to work on, for they could sense her uneasiness and would respond in kind.

Nick's Charizard kept the Arbok away, not actively engaging, but moving and shifting in key ways. He forever kept himself between the snake and the humans in the greenhouse. It was a little improvement that the serpent wasn't actively charging and snapping. Zahlia was too much of a realist—borderline pessimist—to think it was warming to any of them, though. More likely, it simply recognized it was outnumbered.

The Alakazam that had evolved from the unassuming Abra, whose sole job had been to teleport Zahlia and Gastly, was by far the least violent of Zeke's Pokémon. It had evolved last and therefore been folded into his battle roster most recently. Yet it still bore the undercurrent of darkness that his whole team did—the quiet damage, the surliness and reluctance to cooperate.

Her own Gengar kept that one in check along with Trentolds' Haunter. The ghosts stayed near it, circling slowly, but not like predators. She could still see the Alakazam didn't take kindly to their hounding presence. When they strayed too near, it erected a bubble of Reflect around itself, as if forever establishing its boundaries.

In the distance Blake dared to get so close to Zeke's Fearow that Zahlia felt her stomach go watery. She kept expecting to see it lunge, sink its talons deep into her brother's very mortal, very easily shredded flesh, but Blake had taken a leaf from their mother's book.

Nancy stood nearby, silently coaching, the pair of them communicating nonverbally as surely as Zahlia did with any of her Pokémon. Fearow still fluffed and bristles and clacked its beak with clear, malevolent warning, but Blake, purely by refusing to be cowed, held his ground and even gained a foot here or there.

Up above, his Farfetch'D and Golbat kept pace with Zeke's Golbat and Venomoth. Definitely two of the milder of Zeke's former team, they were still by no means pleasant. Zahlia privately doubted any of her brother's old Pokémon would truly earn that title. "Bearable" would be more reasonable—or even merely "not murderous." She could settle for that.

Trentolds, who had been watching their ghosts circling Alakazam, making no real headway, turned to lock eyes with her. After a moment, he strolled over. The pair of them watched the various trainings, keeping silent company for a time.

"I somehow doubt I'll ever get through to them," Zahlia found herself admitting to the strangely disarming, quiet man who she had once thought would make a fine honorary Nakawa.

Trentolds didn't offer her bland reassurances or empty advice. They just shared a silence for a time.

"How is your Gengar coming?"

"He's alright—most of the time," she said, but trailed off partway through the first sound of her next sentence. She tried to remember if she'd ever actually shared with him the story of how Gengar had evolved, but drew up blanks. Not sure if she wanted to go into it here and now, she mulled that idea over, but he seemed to read it off her.

"I'm sorry. I can't help but feel that, if I had evolved him back when we met, some of this could have been avoided."

Slowly, Zahlia shook her head. "No. I doubt it would have changed anything."

She didn't realize how much she believed it until the words left her. Her eyes found Orion, the tense line of his back as he watched Zeke's Arbok, who had begun to get restless with Nick's Charizard. It would be easy to go around in her head forever, playing that "what if this had gone differently?" game, but it wasn't worth it. She had begun to let go of it last night. Hanging onto Orion so tight, she'd become aware so powerfully and suddenly how much she had lost and still stood to lose. Her inaction and inability to move on had nearly cost her even more, and the letting go had finally begun there. She felt even more of it happening now, icy claws easing inside her a fraction at a time.

Orion swore up and down that his alpha gene extended only to Pokémon, but Zahlia was beginning to call BS on that. He had to have felt the weight of her gaze, because he turned to face her. It took only a long second for the hard, aggressive lines of his face to smooth out. He blinked slow and, just like that, went from ready for a fight to tired but full of warmth and recognition. She smiled back at him, but glanced away quickly, letting him focus on things that were more important right now.

Blake was closer to Zeke's Fearow than he'd ever been before. Zahlia couldn't be one hundred percent sure, but the large bird seemed less terrible these days. There had been some sort of breakthrough when it had come face-to-face with Nancy for the first time in so long. The more Nancy sat in on these sessions, the better it seemed to do. Zahlia smiled—perhaps her mother should move in, if only to continue assisting with rehabilitation.

As if to prove her wrong, Fearow screamed and flapped its wings in a violent torrent, a half-actualized Gust attack. Orion charged, Nancy moved in from the side like a spotter, and Blake, through some iron will Zahlia was sure she did not possess, held his ground. His shoulders only pulled back a fraction.

She thought they'd have to return Fearow, but after a tense few seconds it put a more comfortable distance between itself and Blake and settled for clacking its beak. Zahlia let out a ragged whoosh of a breath. Trentolds muttered behind her, "yeah."

"The fact that Blake is having that much luck with Fearow—and I know it doesn't look like luck—it's amazing. Fearow was arguably Zeke's worst Pokémon."

Trentolds gave a quiet, thoughtful hmm. "It's going to take a lot to get through, but you and your brother are the ones best suited for the task. You just have to see it through to the end."

Zahlia nodded, recognizing the truth in his words. She lifted her head again to eye her little brother—her not-so-little brother anymore. She hadn't noticed it until after Zeke's death, but the older Blake got, the more he began to look exactly like Vaughn Nakawa's eldest son. He was going to be taller than Orion when he was done. At first the growth spurts had been funny. She remembered him hitting his head on areas he'd been able to clear easily months before, or knocking glasses of water over with arms that were suddenly too long. Other times, like now, when the cut of his profile looked so much like a ghost from the past, it stilled Zahlia's heart.

Nick's approach pulled her out of her reverie, and she turned to face him, lifting her eyebrows in a silent question. He nodded, indicating it was time for the second part of the training session. Zahlia lifted two fingers and Gengar retreated from his place spotting for Alakazam. Trentolds seamlessly released his own Gengar to take his place as Zahlia's ghost drew level with her.

Zahlia could see in the distance that Venusaur was having a calmer evening than normal. He wasn't pacing, but was still crouched down as if ready for anything. His eyes were tracking, back and forth, back and forth, with a quiet agitation. Somehow, Zahlia could tell he was thinking.

"Alright," Nick said, clapping his hands. "I figure the best way is if I have no idea when you're gonna lay it on me, right?"

Zahlia nodded. "It's preferable if you don't even face me at all."

"Got it." Nick gave her a double thumbs up, but she could sense his uneasiness. Everyone she knew was so stubbornly brave about being her Dream Eater or possession test subjects. They all had misgivings—no sane human wouldn't—but she was never wanting for practice partners.

Nick turned away and looked for something to distract him in the distance. Trentolds obligingly sidled up next to him and the pair took to whiling away the time with League gossip.

Zahlia beckoned Gengar closer. She rested her closed fist against her forehead, the back of her hand over what the channelers called her "third eye." Gengar's dark red eyes slid slowly to her face and took in the gesture. After a moment he nodded. Zahlia lowered her fist and executed the hand motions for go slow and take your time. She made a wave in the air with one hand. Easy does it.

Gengar nodded again, but Zahlia knew it wouldn't be perfect. That was what these practice sessions were for. Her ghost turned to Nick's back and, after a moment of consideration, phased into shadow. The inky blot of a Pokémon slid across the ground into the dark shape cast by Nick, and vanished once he touched the shadow.

Nick shivered as if taken by a sudden chill. He turned his head to the side with jerky movements, like he was simultaneously trying to continue his talk with Trentolds and turn to face Zahlia. The effect was frankly nightmarish. Zahlia tried to keep the spooked expression off her face.

After a faltering moment, Gengar retreated back into his own shadow before popping up next to her. Nick let out a whoosh of air and rubbed his hands across his pale face.

"Hokay, yeah, I can still feel it, but on that scale of one to ten it's not an eleven anymore."

"What would you say it is?" Trentolds asked, clear curiosity alight in his dark eyes.

"Oh…" Nick said, wincing a little, and Zahlia knew she wasn't going to like the answer. "Eight? Eight point five?" Zahlia sighed.

"You could try me," a voice said from her left, and Zahlia frowned, recognizing it but needing to turn to make sure she wasn't mistaken.

She wasn't. Jason had drawn nearer, his hands in the pockets of his cargo pants, a remote but calm expression in place. Zahlia regarded him for a moment, as did Gengar. After a second of hesitation, she tilted her head to the side. "It isn't pleasant," she warned him.

The corner of Jason's mouth twitched up. After a second, one of his old, cheeky grins broke out over his face. It looked good on him, even if his eyes were tired. "I can handle," he said. "Anything you can do I can do better," he added teasingly to Nick, who muttered a, why I oughta and tossed up fisticuffs in the Initiate's direction.

Zahlia knew Jason would not appreciate her looking to Orion as if for permission, so she didn't. She could feel Orion watching them, though, and knew if he really had a problem with it he'd put a stop to this. When several seconds crawled by and he didn't, she blew out another soft sigh. "If you're sure," she said. "Same as Nick, then. It's easier for us both if you don't know exactly when it will come."

"Sort of like looking away while the nurse gives you a shot," Jason reasoned, but turned around, facing Venusaur's pen. "Sounds legit."

Nick snorted. "I don't know that anything we've done lately can be called 'legit.'" Trentolds mumbled, "fair," and Jason, for some reason, added, "too soon, dude." Zahlia smiled a little, indulging in a quiet chuckle with the others.

Then she let out a slow breath and repeated her instructions to Gengar a second time. She paused, though, and added a fourth directive, one she had never included for the others. It was one hand rested over her heart and the other lifted to her face, the backs of her fingers resting with a whisper of a touch against her cheek. Be gentle. She knew Jason would resent it if he knew what she was asking, but what he didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

Zahlia expected Gengar to take a moment to contemplate Jason the way he had for Nick, but to her surprise he vanished into the boy's shadow, as fluid as an oil slick. In a seamless, effortless sigh, the world rearranged itself around her.

"Boy, have I got a treat for you!"

For just a second, he believes her. A jolt of excitement kicks up in his chest and his sneakered feet bang against each other in his haste to torque his body sideways in the too-tall kitchen chair. He fixes his mother with a brilliant, face-splitting smile, but a second later, realizes he's been tricked.

"Ew!" he insists when what she shows him is regular computer paper. "That's not a treat!"

"Yes it is!" his mother insists, her normally serious, thoughtfully calculated face transported with clear pride. She lays them all out on the kitchen table in front of him—color-coded multiplication tables, part of his at-home summer learning program.

He groans, loud and long, hamming it up with every ounce of himself. He collapses all over the papers for good effect. "Ohhh my god mom, why do you think I'm gonna be stoked about this!? When did I give you false hope?"

"You're such a twerp!" his mom accuses, ruffling his hair aggressively, and he snaps his head up and outright whines. He tries to style it back into the casually messy sweep he'd been going for. It was supposed to look something like his brother's hair—what he remembered his brother's hair looking like. But Jason's just doesn't fall the right way.

"You know I'm not a crafty mom," she insists, trying to sound hurt but not doing a good job. "I don't do art and sewing and coloring! You should be proud of me."

"Of course I'm proud of you!" he says at once, turning and giving her a sly, unrepentant grin. His mother, always sharp to his ways, narrows her blue eyes at him. All Jason does in return is grin wider. "In fact, I'm sooo proud of you, we should go get ice cream!"

"Uh-huh," she says, leaning closer and giving Jason a split second of warning. A moment later he is on the receiving end of a vicious tickle attack. "You know what I think?" she asks over his peals of protesting laughter. "I think someone is trying to con his way out of his summer learning! That's what I think!"

Jason, through tears of laughter, swears up, down, left, right and center that it isn't true. The sheafs of computer paper fly in a flurry around the pair of them. They continue to fly, circling, creating a gentle, slow-moving vortex of color, and

Zahlia emerged from the vision with a deep, slow breath. At some point during the link, Jason had turned around to face her. His expression was blank—worrisomely so, especially given the tears that cut paths down his cheeks. Zahlia blinked a few times to get her bearings straight and only realized then that her own lashes were heavy. She was crying, too.

An emotion finally made it to Jason's face—a twitch of surprise, then genuine astonishment, followed by slight discomfort. Zahlia lifted her hand, wanting to assure him he didn't have to talk, desperate to apologize, but he shook his head hard.

"It was—so weird," he said. "I didn't… hang on." He blew out a breath, rubbed his palms into his eyes, and sucked in another one.

Orion had joined them too—when had that happened? "Are you alright?" he asked Jason, real concern on his face and not that jagged-edged, aggressive version of it that as so hard to read.

"Yeah," Jason said. "I really am. It was just so—I don't think I saw what you saw while you were seeing it. I mean, I turned around after a while to see if, I don't know, I'd missed it?" he asked. "I mean—you weren't saying anything, it seemed like such a long time passed. You were zoned out, but—" He lifted a hand to his face. "Making faces?" He sounded uncertain and sniffed hard, a by-product of the sudden emotion. He rubbed his hand under his nose. "It was like you were watching something happen, but I couldn't figure out what it was. And then—all of the sudden—" He let out another breath. "This memory just hit me and—it's got to be what you saw, yeah? The—the papers?"

Zahlia dimly nodded, realizing she wasn't saying enough. "I did," she assured him. "I thought—usually when that happens we see it in real time together."

Jason shook his head. "No, I don't think it happened that way at all. It was like—this, condensed wall of feeling hit me. Right at the end, like, a second before you came out of it. It was… fine. I mean, it didn't hurt. Maybe there's even a way to jump past that bit at the end, where I see what you saw all at once? Who knows."

"That could—that could work," Nick murmured.

Zahlia nodded, her throat still tight. She gave Jason a brittle smile. "I think that's exactly what I have to work on next. Thank you. It's the most success I've had."

"I could get used to being involved in successes over failures," Jason said dimly, going for a joke that fell a little flat. He ran a hand along the back of his neck and sighed heavily once more.

"I've got a few ideas on that," Trentolds said quietly, watching the proceedings with his typical muted interest. "I've got to say… this is looking very promising."


	20. Speak For Yourself :Kaylee:

Pokémon Azure

Chapter 20: Speak For Yourself

(Kaylee Harrison)

"Seriously, you okay?"

Gina looked back one more time, then lifted a fidgety hand to her bandana. "Yeah, sorry. She just looked really familiar."

Kaylee arched an eyebrow behind her large sunglasses, but shrugged. "Well, I mean, you _might_ have seen her before," she allowed. "You've been to Cinnabar before and, I mean, it's an _island_."

Gina cast her a sidelong look and gave her a wan, amused smile. "Cinnabar may be an island, but its population is over ten times that of Pallet." She winked and Kaylee grinned. Gina knew that fact because it was one of the Cinnabar trivia questions Kaylee had aced yesterday in the Gym. "I know small towns, and trust me. This isn't a small town."

Kaylee snorted, rolled her eyes and grinned. "Okay, fair. Splitting hairs, but fair. Anyway, don't worry about it. I'm sure it was nothing."

Gina sighed. "I hope you're right." Her friend gave one last twitchy look over her shoulder before shaking it off at last.

Kaylee knew she was in a minority. Most people she knew hated confrontation in general. Trainer battles were one thing, but it seemed a consensus among the rest of the population that going toe-to-toe with someone else to convince them they were wrong was not something to be enjoyed.

With each step closer to the Gym, Gina grew more visibly nervous, but Kaylee was psyching herself up. Avery had shut them down yesterday, and she knew they could have handled it better. Kaylee hadn't expected him to react so strongly, even with Dasten's warning, but she wouldn't make that mistake again. She was ready; hell, she couldn't wait.

Gina and she let themselves into the Gym and passed by a challenger who was just exiting. It didn't look like he'd done well, judging by the hollow-eyed, bleak expression he wore. Kaylee felt a pang of sympathy but was determined not to leave this place looking anything like him.

The moment they made it to the hallway with the questions, a panel popped open on the opposite side of the wall. Kaylee turned to the sliding panel, bewildered, but beside her Gina mumbled, "oh boy."

The man who emerged was holding a battery-operated fan locked to the highest setting and pointed resolutely at his face, but he still looked miserably overheated. He eyed Kaylee and Gina in a way that told Kaylee at once he was onto them.

"Hi," Gina said, reluctant. The man who must be Lowell, Avery's senior Gym Aide, blew out a sigh.

"Hello," he said. "So you are… back." The skepticism in his voice was mixed with pity.

"We are!" Kaylee said. "Do we have to answer the questions again? Or can we go straight back?"

Lowell made a face. "Listen… I'm not under orders to stop you from going on, but I wouldn't feel right if I didn't tell you this. You're seriously wasting your time."

"Thanks," Kaylee said, her voice pleasant. "But we'll be the judges of that."

"Uh-huh," Lowell said, frowning at the girls now.

"Don't worry!" Kaylee said. "We're not going to make the same mistake as yesterday."

"Kind of a moot point by now but… sure." Lowell shrugged. "Have… fun."

"Oh, we will," Kaylee assured him, and the tiny, stifled groan from Gina clearly said _speak for yourself._

Kaylee and Gina were able to bypass the question panels, true to Gym policy. Kaylee wasn't sure if Lowell had warned Avery they were coming, or if it was sheer dumb luck that the Gym Leader was waiting when they arrived.

He took one look at them and scowled. "I honestly do not want to call the police," he growled. "It'd get Dasten and Broome in trouble. Whatever you're messed up in, I'd prefer not to drag them along for the ride."

"Oh," Kaylee said, waving her hand without concern. "No no, I'm sorry sir. I'm not here to talk about that right now. I'm here for a trainer battle."

Avery gave her the blandest, most unconvinced look she'd ever seen in her life, and she'd experienced some of Blake's bland and unconvinced looks, so that was saying something. "Bullshit."

"No, I mean it!" Kaylee assured him, lifting the hem of her jacket up and away to display the two Pokéballs settled at her right hip. "Two on two? My top is forty."

Avery barked out a laugh. "I reserve the right to refuse a battle to any trainers. What makes you think I'm going to humor you? I know what you're really here for."

"Okay, sure, you _can_ turn me away," Kaylee allowed. "But are you _going_ to?"

"Just tell me what your angle is or get out," Avery said.

"No angle," Kaylee said. "We got off on a bad foot. I'm a Fire-trainer exclusively and I love this island and this Gym and everything I've heard about your roster. When our friend came back from his Gym win against you I made him retell the story probably fifty times. If I've got a limited window to challenge you before you really _do_ call the cops on us? I'm going to take it."

Avery's scowl deepened. "Again, I call bullshit."

"Call bullshit all you want," Kaylee said. "But are you gonna turn me away?"

She could practically feel Gina cringing down into an ingot of matter denser than a dying sun beside her, but to her credit the Initiate didn't balk outwardly during Kaylee's ballsy speech. She hoped she was striking the chord she was going for. She wanted to impress upon Avery the truth of her words; as a Fire-trainer, battling against Avery of Cinnabar Island Gym was, hands down, in the top five items on her bucket list. But she didn't want to seem like she was flattering him either, which was why she continued to needle him. If he was anything like the man she'd read about, he'd rise to the challenge and prickle under her unapologetic brass.

Avery let the long silence stretch. Kaylee didn't stare him down aggressively, but she didn't look away either. She merely maintained eye contact, blinking when she felt like it, but never let the tiny smile leave her face.

When Avery snorted with so much disgust and frustration that it made Gina twitch, Kaylee knew she'd won. "I'm not going easy on you just because you name-dropped Dasten and Broome," he grumbled.

"I hardly think you'd go easy on me!" Kaylee said with a sharp laugh. "We trashed the labs and convinced Dasten to shelter fugitives and go on the run instead of doing his job… what was it? I expect you to do your best to obliterate me, and I look forward to it!"

"Insane," Avery gritted out under his breath, selecting two Pokéballs from an area obscured by one of the pillars at the back of the room.

"That's fair," Kaylee quipped, and he groaned. That was the final phrase they exchanged before the red lights flooded the floor.

Avery had gone with a magnificent, bright Magmar which faced down Kaylee's oldest Arcanine. A tiny smirk quirked the corner of Kaylee's mouth, born of one part nerves, nine parts eager excitement. They'd both brought out the big guns right away.

Avery wasted not a second. "Fire Blast!" he shouted, and Kaylee's knees turned to water.

"Left!" she screamed. The blast came so quickly she didn't even have time to see Avery's Pokémon execute it. The five-pronged, unthinkably hot shape that screamed its way across the Gym bleached her vision, and she heard her Arcanine dodge straight into one of the "legs" of the massive attack. Useless trivia flashed across her mind; Fire Blast was engineered exactly right and was nearly impossible to dodge when it went off successfully.

Kaylee pressed her palms into her eyes and shouted, "Take Down!" She heard her Pokémon storming across the Gym floor and knew Arcanine must have avoided serious damage. Kaylee forced her eyes open in time to see Magmar snag Arcanine out of midair and redirect her momentum to throw her across the floor.

Yet Arcanine rolled and righted herself snap-quick. All of that grappling with Tim's Hitmonlee and Primeape had paid off. Arcanine was able to leap aside from Magmar's follow-up Confuse Ray, and her Pokémon didn't stop there. She scaled the wall, nearly running up it at one point, and the Magmar gave chase. It was unthinkably fast; no creature that looked the way a Magmar looked had any right to be that fast.

It was already unbearably hot. Any enjoyment Kaylee had gotten from the oppressive heat was long gone. "Roar!" she shouted.

Her Pokémon turned on a pin and released a reverberating, terrifying snarl. Yet almost before Arcanine was even done turning, the Magmar rolled backwards. Its red hands were clasped firmly over its ears as it put as much distance between them as possible.

Kaylee swore, but knew she shouldn't be surprised. Avery was the Fire-type Gym Leader, which meant he had to know, intimately, every move every Fire-type learned. Dread and excitement warred within her; she was so fortunate to be able to take part in this battle, but she was starting to understand. She may have bitten off more than she could chew.

Speaking of. "Bite!" Arcanine lunged for the retreating Magmar, but Magmar dodged out of the way. Arcanine had to execute another roll to avoid eating floor. It was just too fast.

Arcanine turned around, but it was just in time to eat a solid Fire Punch straight to the face. A burst of heat rippled from the spot of impact and Arcanine skidded back in a heap. Another delayed rush of warmth, like an oven being pulled open, rolled over Kaylee.

Magmar leapt for Arcanine, Smog billowing from its bill. Kaylee screamed, without thinking, "Flames up!"

It was pure instinct, but the sight of that black, choking smoke called forth a single crystal clear image in her mind. Her Pokémon, a Growlithe then, had sent flames into the sky, using fire to punch holes through the thick mist left by dozens and dozens of Gastlies in the Pokémon Tower.

Her Arcanine's Flamethrower engulfed the Magmar's face, but when the price she paid was taking a second Fire Punch straight in the jaw, Kaylee called for a heal break.

Gina looked almost as wobbly and wrung-out as Kaylee felt. "Holy crap," her friend said as Kaylee and Arcanine retreated from all that boiling heat. "Are you really sure it was a great idea to piss him off two days in a row, then challenge him to a fight?"

Kaylee laughed, but the bottle of Hyper Potion was slick and slippery in her sweaty palm. "Whatever do you mean?" she asked as she sprayed Arcanine down. "I'm known for my gold-star planning ahead." She grinned up at Gina, shaky but energized. Gina gave her a _you're insane but I still love you_ look.

The moment the battle recommenced, Avery's Magmar went for a second Fire Blast. Kaylee damn near had a heart attack, but the Gym Leader's Pokémon shuddered, strained, and did absolutely nothing. Fire Blast was all or nothing, and at the moment it looked like nothing.

Kaylee knew she had to capitalize on this moment. "Take Down!" she shouted, knowing her full-health team member could handle the recoil damage. The zippy Magmar that was so hard to hit took the Take Down full in the belly while it tried to recover from the internal glitch. The creature went for Smog again, an immediate reaction, and before Kaylee could call an order out Arcanine dove forward. Her teeth closed right around the Magmar's bill, and only the tiniest traces of Smog eked out.

Kaylee's jaw dropped open and the Magmar flailed. She had never seen a Pokémon so offended and unhappy. Arcanine yelped as Flamethrower erupted from the sides of her captive's beak. She released her hold at once and retreated several paces.

Arcanine responded with a Flamethrower of her own and in absolutely no time the center of the Gym was a roiling ball of fire. A Magmar's fire burned hotter than an Arcanine's—it was a passingly interesting fact before, but now Kaylee couldn't get it out of her mind. They had to get out of this close quarters fight for the time being.

"Pull back!" Kaylee shouted. "Agility!" If she was having a hard time catching the Magmar, it was time to boost Arcanine's stats.

To her great dismay, Avery seemed to have the same idea. "Leer!"

Arcanine faltered a little in the midst of her steadily quicker leaping exercises. Though she was becoming more fleet-footed with each move, she now had an unmistakable nervous edge.

Well, two could play at that. "Leer _back!_ "

Arcanine rushed forward with her new burst of speed and stopped short, hunkering down and baring her teeth at the other Fire-type. Her hackles bristled and rose in such a clear threat that Magmar did look hesitant. Yet it didn't stumble the way her Arcanine had, which Kaylee found riotously unfair.

It was Avery's turn. When he shouted for a third Fire Blast Kaylee was completely unprepared. Arcanine, unfortunately, was too. She was faster and leapt as far aside as she could, vaulting herself up over the trailing leg of the move that had pegged her last time. She went for a clean dive between two of the burning strands of fire—and didn't quite make it. She yelped, singing her belly and back.

"Heal break!" Kaylee called, mopping uselessly at the sweat gathered at her forehead and cutting down her face in rivers. Arcanine limped over and Kaylee yanked out her second Hyper Potion.

It didn't make sense—Fire Blast was a taxing move and was only effective a few times per battle. Hell, it was only worth it a few times per _day_ unless this Magmar was impossibly skilled.

Yet, Kaylee thought as she emptied the bottle across her Pokémon's back and underside, that in itself told her something. Perhaps the Gym Leader was trying to bring this fight to a close. She glanced across the arena and saw that, instead of waiting for her to finish, Avery had decided to heal Magmar as well.

 _Shit_ , she thought. Maybe she was wrong. If he was giving the Magmar a potion, it clearly had more fight in it. This battle was far from over.

Kaylee was, strictly speaking, done with her heal break, but pretended to be working the potion deeper into her Pokémon's fur to give her an extra moment to coach Arcanine. "Psst," she whispered near her ear. "This is how we're gonna wear that thing down. Go in like you're rushing for a bite—it'll try to Fire Punch you in the face."

Arcanine swiveled her head slowly to fix Kaylee with an absolutely skeptical, disbelieving look. She clearly thought she was batshit insane. Kaylee gave her an apologetic smile. "At the last second you're gonna roar right in its face and scare the crap out of it. When it flinches, take it down—keep it on the rocks. Its fire is hotter than yours, so you can't beat it that way."

Arcanine didn't seem pleased about that update, and it pained Kaylee just as much to say it. Using fire was the whole point of being a Fire-type trainer, but at the same time, there was so much more to her Pokémon than their element.

Kaylee gave her Pokémon a grin. "Alternate between Bite, Roar and Take Down. Don't let up. You got this."

Arcanine gave her one of her rare, silly doggy grins, and Kaylee knew they were on the same page. Arcanine must have noticed how much the Magmar hated Bite as well.

Kaylee whistled and Arcanine bounded back to the middle of the arena. Avery stepped forward and his Magmar slipped back in as well.

Kaylee didn't waste any time. "Go!" she shouted. She deliberately avoided using the word _bite._

Arcanine lunged forward, paws striking hard and fast against the scorched tile floor. The Magmar sucked in a breath that Kaylee knew by now was in preparation for Flamethrower. Kaylee would have bet her bottom mark, however, that the posture was a ruse. The Magmar was acting like it was locking and loading Flamethrower when in reality she was sure a fire punch was coming. Great minds thought alike.

She never got to find out if she was right about her hunch. At the last possible second Arcanine bellowed out a thunderous Roar instead.

The Magmar jerked, great billowing clouds of steam rising from its bill—no flames, no punch. Arcanine didn't even slow. The fake-out Bite-turned-Roar rolled straight into a Take Down and Arcanine barreled right into the Magmar's chest.

Kaylee knew the one-two-three combo was absolutely solid, save for one potential snag. The Magmar had time to land a second attack now, and Kaylee knew it would be a tough one to survive.

Yet Arcanine's Agility paid off. She was able to dodge aside from another Fire Punch and roared again at an off-balance Magmar at close range. The Magmar, however, was beginning to learn how to shake that off. It glared malevolently at Arcanine and swung another wild haymaker of a Fire Punch at her, but Arcanine dodged under it. She planted her feet wide and popped up right under Magmar's outstretched arm to land another Take Down straight to its solar plexus.

Kaylee knew somehow, through instinct or some other tell, that two rounds would be all she got with this new technique. Avery had to be wise to her by now, so she'd be forced to abandon the strategy.

"For real now!" she yelled, hoping it was vague enough for him to not immediately decipher what she meant.

Avery didn't issue any commands to Magmar that she could see. His Pokémon erupted with a Flamethrower, deciding to go for it even in those close quarters. Arcanine yelped and rolled aside, then scrambled upright and darted around the Magmar in a sweeping arc. The Magmar swept the torrent of rushing flames after her, chasing the dog and increasing the temperature in the Gym, if possible, even more.

Arcanine pivoted suddenly and dove for the Magmar with what looked, for all the world, like her Bite that would turn into a Roar. By now the Magmar, knowing what to expect, clapped its hands over its ears. It was just a split second before Avery shouted, "no!" across the Gym. Kaylee was right—he had picked up on her idea, but by then it was too late.

Magmar, both hands occupied trying to block the Roar that never came, took the full power of the bite. It let out a shrill sound of rage and leapt back to go for a fourth Fire Blast.

Kaylee sucked in a breath, ready to call for a heal break if by some miracle she survived that attack, but the Magmar twitched forward and spun its head to the side as if seized with a sudden shudder. It had failed for a second time, but Kaylee somehow knew this was different. The attack hadn't formed as a natural dud; the Magmar had flinched, one of her favorite side-effects of Bite.

" _Getim!"_ Kaylee shouted, and Arcanine charged forward for another brutal Take Down. The Magmar lunged back, but wasn't fast enough to avoid the hit. It erupted into an enormous mushroom cloud of superheated steam, and Kaylee threw her arms up to shield her face. Alarm streaked through her in neon bolts. It took her a wild few seconds to realize that, Fire Blast, even if it failed, still stored up heat—all of which had just burst out of Magmar from the impact.

She coughed and backed up, feeling every pore on her face opening up and positively bleeding sweat down her face. When she blinked through the dissipating steam with watering eyes, it was to see the Magmar down for the count in a heap.

For how hard Avery had been trying to annihilate her in the last battle, he didn't seem all that upset when he moved to recall his Magmar. He just huffed out a small snort and eyed her, calculating and even.

Kaylee smiled back but couldn't muster up a cheeky grin. That had been entirely too close for comfort, and though she'd never gone into this meaning to underestimate a Gym Leader, that fight had brought everything into sharper focus.

"You did great," she said to her eldest Arcanine, running her hands across her almost too-hot, rumpled fur. "Your little brother's got this one. I want you to rest."

True to her older sibling ways, Arcanine looked uncertain about leaving whatever came next solely to Kaylee's youngest Pokémon to deal with, but she was nothing if not obedient. She merely took a few seconds to lick Kaylee's hand wearily before she let herself be returned.

Kaylee selected her next ball, sensing Avery would not appreciate being kept waiting. A second later red light burst out into the arena once more.

When the light solidified into a gorgeous, shining Rapidash, Kaylee fought off a smile. She'd been worried she was about to face down a Charizard—Gina had warned her Avery had one in his roster. She knew, of course, that the Leader of the Cinnabar Gym didn't have any "slouch" Pokémon, but still. She was glad that his second pick appeared less hardcore than his first.

Kaylee chanced a glance at Gina, lifting her eyebrows and smiling, but the expression faltered and fell right off her face. Gina was staring at the Rapidash like she was suddenly assailed with horrible flashbacks, and Kaylee's heart stuttered in her chest. Maybe this _wasn't_ a good thing.

She spun forward, no longer remotely at ease and managed to mutter, "be ready to dodge," just in time. The Rapidash shot forward so quickly that, for one of the first times in Kaylee's life, she bodily flinched back from a display of speed alone. It went for Stomp and her youngest Arcanine wasn't fast enough to avoid the damage. He yelped, but thankfully hadn't taken the full brunt.

"Grab it!" she shouted, and her youngest obliged. Kaylee's male Arcanine was objectively better at grappling than her female. He was the first to start training with Tim's Fighting-types, his sister only joining reluctantly after seeing the improvement in her brother.

Here was where it showed. Arcanine dove at the Rapidash, but instead of simply tackling it in the flank, he bear-hugged it and brought it straight to the ground. It was an extremely literal version of Take Down.

The Rapidash, not expecting this in any way, whinnied, neighed, kicked erratically and finally burst into flames the way they did when they didn't like what was touching them. Kaylee winced a little, but knew these flames weren't as dangerous as the Magmar's. The heat was more or less on par with Arcanine's fire, and she knew he could handle it—at least for a while.

Arcanine held on an admirably long time, but when Rapidash finally got four hooves planted square in his chest, he went flying across the floor with the force of the kick.

Kaylee got to watch something objectively sad and funny—a Rapidash struggling and kicking itself back to its feet. It looked nothing like the majestic paintings and glamor photos that Kaylee had so often seen of its kind. It huffed, snorted and pawed the ground, clearly irate. Kaylee filed the information away. It seemed to really hate being on the ground, and it might be enough to throw it off in a key moment.

"Break," Avery called, and Kaylee did a small double-take. It was early— _too_ early. Not usually one for paranoia, Kaylee indulged in it now. There was no way that this Pokémon, who had clearly given Gina enough trouble to put that expression on her face, had HP that low to start with.

When Avery was back, his Rapidash glossy and gorgeous as ever, Kaylee sent Arcanine forward for a spitting torrent of Flamethrower bursts. The Rapidash only partly dodged them, and Kaylee was feeling somewhat smug. That was, before Avery gave his next command.

"Fire Spin!"

God how Kaylee hated Fire Spin. It was, hands-down, one of the most annoying moves she could imagine, even with her fire bias. She gritted her teeth as Arcanine failed to escape and was wrangled and corralled into an increasingly tighter circle by rushing, searing flames. Kaylee dully counted the rotations in her head, not really alarmed until they reached four entire spins. By the fifth one her mouth was hanging open.

 _Five_ spins for the first attack of its kind this battle. It wasn't unheard of, but it was insanely lucky. Fire Spin was a delicate, tricky move that required intense concentration and immense skill, and could often peter out after only two rotations.

Kaylee didn't need a Dex to know she needed a heal break after that. She whistled and Arcanine limped back.

Kaylee caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Her friend drew up closer and they exchanged a few hurried words.

"You look like you know this one," Kaylee muttered as she pulled out another one of her potion bottles.

"Yeah, I do," Gina said, deliberately looking anywhere but at the Rapidash. "He used that one against Jason the first time… and won. It's amazingly difficult."

"Oh good," Kaylee said, fighting off a grimace and doing a terrible job.

"No, I think you can do it. Just… watch out," Gina said. "It…" she mulled it over, finally deigning to cast the Rapidash a sidelong look. "I think it was actually _harder_ to beat the Rapidash than the Magmar."

 _Well, crap,_ Kaylee thought. They had reversed their strategies. She'd assumed they'd both brought the big guns out first, and though she'd never say it in front of her youngest Arcanine, lest she demoralize him, that knowledge was just going to make this fight harder to win.

"You doing alright, buddy?" she asked, patting down his newly-healed fur. He woofed, slobbered on her sweaty hand, and bounded back into the arena.

When he was swept up in a second five-rotation Fire Spin the moment Avery recommenced the battle, Kaylee knew she was in trouble. It only hit her when she had to recall her Arcanine for the second heal break in a row that she was on Death Row.

She was sweating so badly that her shirt and her pants were plastered to her skin. Her hands shook a little with an undeniable rattle of nerves as she deployed her next potion. A theory slowly gained traction in her mind.

Suddenly the suspicious "heal break" so early in the battle made sense. He had to have given the Rapidash an X Accuracy instead. That was why each Fire Spin not only hit without fail, but was sustained for so long.

Kaylee wished fervently that she had words of comfort and encouragement for her youngest Arcanine. All she could do was throw a quick hug around his sooty, hot neck. Then she sent him back into the battle—and straight into a third Fire Spin.

After three of what she knew to be five total spins by now, her Pokémon let out a booming roar from the center of the inferno. The Rapidash's hooves skittered backwards, kicking up sparks on the charred floor. It almost looked like its legs moved against its will, an instinctual reaction to retreat. When that Fire Spin petered out after only three and a half spins, Kaylee's heart kicked out a hopeful rhythm in her chest.

"Yes, okay! Roar!"

"Distance," Avery called, a seeming non-sequitur, but a moment later Kaylee understood. Roar had technically counted as Kaylee's turn, and the fourth Fire Spin scooped up her Arcanine yet again.

Kaylee fought back a wild, violent curse. She gave in to the urge to snake her fingers into her sodden hair and tug, knowing how baldly expressive she was being, but not caring about her pride.

She waited for those fires to tighten in closer the way they had before, but after a moment she realized this one was keeping a larger circumference. It had to be because the Rapidash was spinning from farther away—it must not have as tight a control over it, but it hardly mattered. With its accuracy still so high, Kaylee would be shocked if this was anything less than a five-spin, and if it was—there was no way they'd survive this turn.

What would he do if she lost? Would he send her away? Had that been inevitable to begin with? She couldn't help feeling, irrational though it seemed, that she was meant to win this fight—to prove herself somehow. Even though her ability to earn a Volcano Badge was in no way tied to her credibility as a source of information, jitters and jolts ran up and down her legs. It was the itchy, arrested urge to move and she had no idea what to do with it.

Instead she watched the Fire Spin, each of its slow rotations taking at least three times as long as the last. She heard Arcanine trying to roar through it, but it had hardly any effect. There was a slight uneasiness and some shifting from the Rapidash, but the large space between the two Pokémon had removed much of the threat. Kaylee gritted her teeth—and then caught a glimpse of her Arcanine through a gap in the wall of the Fire Spin. Her stomach jumped up against her ribs.

The third rotation had barely started when the gap appeared again, and Arcanine was jumping at the same moment Kaylee shouted " _Go!"_ Arcanine bull-rushed his way through the moving gap in the wall of fire, singing himself as it wasn't an Arcanine-sized gap. Yet he made it through with minimal damage, and the Rapidash's stunned expression was engulfed a second later in a concussion blast of fire.

Kaylee had seen her youngest do this a handful of times. He stored up a Flamethrower, building heat and pressure inside the cave of his mouth, then let it out all at once. The result was a clap of light, sound and flames—a mini-ball of an explosion.

Kaylee crowed in triumph, unable to help herself. Avery, over on his side of the Gym, even had the decency to look momentarily stunned.

"Again!" he shouted, and Rapidash thundered to the far side of the Gym, weaving a spin as it went.

Kaylee focused, knowing Avery wasn't going to make the same mistake twice. Yet the tiny bubble of bolstered glee in her center didn't dissipate.

Rapidash was watching for those treacherous gaps in its Fire Spin now, and was actively warping the fire this way and that to close them before they got big enough to be an opportunity.

"Sauna this place!" Kaylee yelled, inspiration striking from a place born of desperation. Her youngest could not afford even two rotations, and she needed to get him out.

She couldn't see Arcanine pointing his snout skyward, but a second later huge columns of steam hit the ceiling and funneled down over the fiery column. In a matter of moments the room was filled with vapor so thick it looked like fog. Kaylee grimaced and bared her teeth against this wetter form of heat that married the sweat drenching her body and created a new kind of misery. She closed her eyes and crossed her fingers. Rapidash couldn't see where the gaps were now. Arcanine couldn't, either—but that meant he still had a chance to break through.

It took a second, but she heard the scrabbling of his nails against the hard floor, the rush of his charge. The Rapidash whinnied in pain. Through steam that was starting to dissipate without a steady source, she saw the Rapidash rear back on its hind legs. Its gleaming forehooves caught the oddly-filtered light through Arcanine's plumes of haze, and it slashed down in a hellish rush at her Pokémon.

Arcanine didn't even try to dodge. He took the full brunt of the Stomp for one reason alone—so he could land a second devastating Flamethrower to the Rapidash's underbelly, delivered by a snapping bite.

The two Pokémon vanished from sight one more time, but Kaylee spotted a flail of limbs at the last second. A cry of shock followed from the massive, gleaming horse. She waved her arms frantically in a pinwheel before her face, as if that could clear the residual haze from the room quicker.

"Lowell!" Avery called from his side of the Gym, completely obscured. "Ventilate this place, would you?"

Seconds later the roar of industrial fans kicked to life, and mere seconds later the leftover haze and steam was gone. Gone, too, was Avery's Rapidash. She had missed it—but he must have recalled it. Her Arcanine looked about half a step from a dead faint himself, his legs trembling hard, but he was still on his feet. Kaylee didn't wait—she recalled her poor, beaten down Pokémon in a wild jab of a button, not wanting to risk that he'd keel over right there before the Gym Leader.

… The Gym Leader she'd just beaten.

Kaylee didn't even have it in her to whoop or pump her fist in the air or even let out a hissed _yes!_ Her knees wobbled and it was only through great force of will that she kept herself upright.

Avery still wore most of his stoic expression, but she liked to think there was a certain consideration in his eyes now—a new appreciation that robbed him of some of his edge.

"Congrats," he said, his voice low and unimpressed. He produced a bright drop of fiery red from his pocket. The Volcano Badge, secured between his first and middle fingers, caught the Gym's lights as he winged it across the way to her. Kaylee lifted an outstretched hand and caught it effortlessly in her right palm. It was hot to the touch, the way she remembered the Fire Stones being as she carved them from the cliff faces in Victory Road. Her whole heart seized up with glee. Yet Kaylee almost took more delight from the fact that he hadn't demanded they leave right that second.

"I'm Kaylee Harrison," she said, a fact she'd failed to adequately get across earlier. "Ando and Mariko Harrison's daughter."

"I know who you are," Avery said simply. His voice was still flat and his eyes remote, but that strange calm remained. "It's another reason why I'm not keen to call the cops on you. I have a great deal of respect for Jerry Armstrong for doing what he did for Pewter for so many years, 'specially when he never wanted it. But Ando was the kind of Leader we all should aspire to be. He did Brock proud every day of his life."

Normally when someone mentioned Kaylee's parents or grandfather she felt only horror at the irresistible, emotional reaction that crashed over her and robbed her of her voice. Yet now, drenched in sweat, burning alive in this Gym, fresh from her literal trial by fire, Kaylee just blinked hard through the sudden tears in her eyes and gave Avery an equally hard smile. Old pain and old love ravaged her from the inside out and made her brave.

"Everything I'm doing, I'm doing for them." Her voice wavered but she fought through it, not trying to hide it, merely trying to stay coherent. There was no shame in what she felt for her family. Her grief and anger was as real as she was. "We're reaching out to as many people as we can. Just those we've been told we can trust—by those we would trust with our lives. If you don't want to hear what we have to say, this will be the last time I ask. I can't make you believe that our actions are for a greater good and that we fight against an evil that feels even greater than that some days. But I _am_ going to ask you one more time. Will you listen?"

* * *

Kaylee had passed the point of feeling like she'd worked up a clean sweat and had landed firmly in the territory of disgusting by the time she and Gina left Avery's Gym well into twilight. Her legs were sore and weak, her hair limp and bedraggled, and she'd kill for a glass of water, but the smile on her face practically reached both ears.

"So my take-away from that," Gina said, reaching up to gingerly press her palms into her sodden bandana, "is that if someone is mad at me for wrecking a bunch of their stuff, all I have to do is beat them in a Pokémon battle and give them a stirring monologue."

Kaylee laughed, weak and breathless. Her abs hurt too. "Seems like a legit strategy."

The girls relished in the cool evening air and made their way slowly through town. They tried to remember if they could do a late checkout from their inn and explored an abandoned, sandy expanse of shore on the island's east side. The setting sun dyed the world strange maroons and crimsons, and the ocean looked like molten gold.

"Did you know that part of the world is wrong right here?" Kaylee asked, gesturing up and down the broad, smooth strip of sand. "Scientists can't explain it and the locals avoid this place after sundown."

"What, like a superstition?" Gina asked, peering curiously and perhaps a little warily up the shore.

"Not a superstition!" Kaylee insisted. "It's real. There are all sorts of reports about this beach. Some people say they took a walk around here and were notified the next day that their bank balances had mysteriously been flooded with millions of marks—"

"I think I _like_ this superstition," Gina cut in, waggling her eyebrows.

Kaylee grinned and lifted a finger. "That's not all. Other people say they encountered and fought a Pokémon unlike anything that exists in this world. They insist it's not part of the ballparked 150—or 151."

"What, so there's an additional number we don't know about?" Gina asked.

"Or a missing number!"

"Oh!" Kaylee said. "Isn't it time for EUTS?"

"Yeah," Gina said, excitement coloring her voice. "Do you have the—?"

"I do," Kaylee said, clicking her tongue and winking. She yanked a clunky black radio out of her side bag, popped the antenna up and started fiddling with its dials and knobs. It was a relic of the Broome household that Gav and Nick had gotten up and running for them. Kaylee knew even now those who had stayed back were bunched around the higher-quality radio to catch Spikey's first broadcast that would touch upon any of their work.

They weren't ready yet to go live with Spikey's pirate radio station, but in the meantime EUTS was going to do what it could to spread the word. Beth, in a stroke of genius she had attributed entirely to Blake, had put Rei in touch with Wilbur, and it was a short jump from there to put him and his aunt in touch with Spikey. They'd gotten together and talked at length about Lavender, and the rest was history. Spikey's broadcast was scheduled to start any second now, and her special guests of the hour would be the Silvermanns.

Kaylee found the sweet spot between two staticky stations and a commercial wrapped up, announcing that Everything Under the Sun would be on in just another minute. Gina and Kaylee got comfortable down on the sand and adjusted the volume so they could hear it better over the gentle, distant rush of the water against the sand.

Kaylee had, at first against her will, and then with grudging devotion, begun to listen to EUTS more and more. At first she'd been a little surprised that it was still sticking to its doggedly constant timetable, but Beth had explained. EUTS had content writers other than Spikey on staff, which made sense to Kaylee the second Beth said it. Though Spikey had been burning the candle at both ends helping their group, prepping for the launch of her own pirate radio station and sticking to her broadcast schedule, she hadn't had to waste time creating content. Spikey had a handsome buffer of episode ideas that she and her fellow writers worked on only minimally to create cohesive episodes. There was no lack of content, and therefore no show hiatuses. Kaylee was privately doubtful she could ever think of things like that herself; she'd have dropped all of her prior obligations and rewarded Kanto with very conspicuous radio silence.

EUTS had, of course, broadcasted about the attack on Pallet before now. It would have been too conspicuous not to. The guests were first responders, people who had lived in Pallet at one point but relocated, and a few conspiracy theorists who were so off the mark it was laughable. Spikey was unfailingly polite to them all, even though nothing they had to say was worth anything. Kaylee wondered if her loyal listeners had been disappointed in that first recap of the event that had shocked Kanto to its core.

The commercial was up and Kaylee perked up and slid closer to the radio as Spikey's jingle sounded through the speaker. It was a peppy, upbeat little ditty with Spikey's voice speaking over it.

"Hello and welcome to Everything Under the Sun, or E-U-T-S or EUTS!" She pronounced the last word like _yoots._ "I'm your host, Spikey—supersleuth extraordinaire, champion of the crackpot theories and cracker of unforgivably lame jokes! Thank you for joining us today for episode 511. Today's topic is one I've covered before but have been yearning to explore again. That's right: today we'll be digging deeper into the partial destruction of the Pokémon Tower in Lavender Town. I know what you're thinking: _Spike! Been there done that! What more could you possibly have to say?_ Well, dear listeners—that's just the thing! _I_ don't have anything to say at all! Coulda fooled you, right? Here to do all the talking for me are my special guests. Before I bring them out, let me tell you a little bit about Lavender Town natives, Ida Silvermann and her nephew Rei."

Kaylee sucked in a breath. She wondered if Beth was okay listening to this. She had done the right thing, without a doubt—still, it couldn't be easy. Kaylee half paid attention to a pre-recorded clip of Spikey explaining who the Silvermanns were. Most of it was about Ida—her former position as a receptionist at the Pokémon Tower and the night in question that had changed her life. There was a quick breakdown of what had taken place, which Spikey blew through with admirable efficiently. Yet she wasn't cold—she simply didn't play up the tragic events for shock value. Kaylee was surprised that the Gastly attack in the Tower made it into the recap as well.

Three figures caught Kaylee's eye in the far distance, making their way closer. It was unusual, but not unheard of for the young and restless of Cinnabar island to brave this quasi-haunted coastline, and Kaylee disregarded them.

"Welcome to EUTS, Ida and Rei!" Spikey exclaimed, pulling Kaylee's attention back fully.

"Hello!" Ida replied, her voice cheerful and brimming with excitement in a way that reminded Kaylee powerfully of Beth. "I… kind of can't believe I'm here!" she said, stumbling a little over her words and laughing in a charmingly self-deprecating way.

Spikey and Ida traded warm, excited greetings, getting along absolutely famously from the get-go. Rei, on the other hand, was quiet beyond his initial hello, which was probably only given to confirm he was actually in attendance. Spikey smoothly engaged him with a short talk about his various tournaments before flipping the topic to a recent list compilation of funny stereotypes to describe a typical Lavender Town resident.

"So, have you heard of this? Have you heard of 'You Might Be From L-Town If'?"

Rei gave a low groan. "Have I ever," he responded, but it was a promising reaction—more than he'd given her hitherto.

"What do you think of the whole, 'sixty percent of L-Towners report being afraid to leave their own homes' bit?" Spikey asked. "If that were true I guess delivery services would be the number one source of income?"

That actually got a small chuckle out of Rei. "Actually anxiety disorders like that are way more common in Saffron and Celadon. But, hey. You live in the creepy ghost town and you get the reputation for either _being_ creepy or being creeped _out_ by… well, everything."

That got a shared laugh from all three of them and Kaylee smiled, but glanced down the beach to check on the status of the Cinnabar Island natives she'd spotted.

The three figures were closer now and Kaylee frowned, hoping they wouldn't stop to give Gina or her trouble. They all looked male, though it was hard to say for sure at this distance. Her thoughts flickered back to a story Victoria had told them about being razzed by an inebriated guy in Lavender. She wondered if anything about _that_ had made it onto the 'You Might Be From L-Town' list.

The ice was broken on EUTS, and it was time to get to the meat and bones of the interview. "I can't impress upon you enough how much it means to me that you're here. I know the fact that you've not come forward before means you've had some serious misgivings, and I'm honored you picked EUTS to help share your story with Kanto."

Rei gave a slightly derisive chuckle. "I don't want to undermine that lovely thank you, but you've got to understand. What my aunt and I have to say wouldn't be published by just any newspaper or—um, I guess, broadcast by just any radio program."

Spikey's voice was unashamedly gloating. "I only take the best of the best, you're right!" Ida laughed at that. "So, what is your take on the damage done to the Pokémon Tower and the differing eyewitness accounts of what happened there?"

Kaylee frowned for a second, wondering why they'd jumped straight to that subject, but it hit her a second later as Rei began to talk. She had arranged it so Ida didn't have to go into detail about what had happened to her before that. It had all been explained in that recording before they were even introduced. It was another artful consideration that Kaylee was sure she'd have never thought of.

"There's differing eyewitness accounts because they were lying, trying to cover up what really happened," Rei was saying. He paused. "I'm not saying to always believe the most outlandish thing you hear, but it makes you wonder. What's there to gain, for the people of my town? You know, the same people who have that reputation of being too afraid to leave their homes? What would they have to gain from drawing attention, blowing it out of proportion?"

"That's a fair assessment," Spikey allowed, and Kaylee wondered if she was going to play Devil's Advocate. Sure enough: "Though one could argue humans are humans and everyone gets a bite of the fifteen-minute bug once in a while."

"True," Rei allowed. "But even after no one was listening anymore there were at least a dozen who maintained what they saw following the event. They lasted weeks with that story…"

Spikey's tone was solemn when she replied. "And they all went silent at the same time."

"Yep," Rei said. His voice went flat. "Everything dropped. No more visits to the LPD, trying to get the case reopened. All my fellow townsfolk went quiet. One of them used to be my neighbor. He was always a hothead... real passionate. All he wanted in the beginning was a real investigation, and justice for what he saw with his own eyes. A man falling to his death."

Kaylee winced hard. That couldn't have been easy for Zahlia and Blake to hear. She knew Rei had to frame it like a random, mysterious death, versus a violent battle. If he opened that can of worms and shared that there were several others involved in the Tower disaster he might be pegged as one of their associates. They couldn't have that, yet—maybe not ever.

Ida cleared her throat and it occurred to Kaylee that she hadn't spoken up much yet, letting Rei take point. "It's a lot like other key events in Kanto that received a lot of initial police attention and media buzz… and then nothing."

"Absolutely, it's one of the first things I thought too," Spikey affirmed.

Ida blew out a small breath, then muttered a little, "it's okay." It was so quiet it was barely picked up by the mic. Kaylee imagined she was getting a concerned look from Rei. "There were two things spotted in Lavender at the Tower when it was destroyed—two things that meant a great deal to me. One, of course, was the pale figure with the dark hair… the boy who died. The other was the large, violent Fearow. It just fit too well for me to disregard."

Kaylee let out another quiet, shaky sigh. This was a good episode. It was absolutely engrossing, and she already _knew_ all the facts. She couldn't imagine what the rest of Kanto was thinking. She pictured loyal listeners tuning in, frowning, putting pieces together, puzzling. Surely some would write it off as paranoid babble—but not all.

A jitter of nerves coursed through Kaylee's core, but it was a flavor of excitement that hadn't quite matured. She was nervous about this, bringing more people in and putting them at risk, going live like this, even if it was veiled so far. Nothing Rei or Ida said as they hashed out theories with Spikey was incriminating, nor could it get them charged with slander. They weren't targeting any one person. Even if they did see trouble for it, Wilbur was onboard. He'd set up evac routes and even a safehouse for them to stay at if it came to that. It wasn't perfect, but it was so much more than they'd been able to offer before now. They'd never have possessed those resources on these levels before—hell, on any level.

It had been a while since she'd checked in on the figures they were sharing the beach with, so Kaylee popped her head back up. She glanced down the darkening sands, expecting to see the three men closer still now, but they were gone. She frowned, squinting into the distance, and even though her night vision was uncommonly good she couldn't spot any figures bobbing in the surf or seated along the scrubby bushes farther up the sand.

Gina's stifled scream burst every nerve in her body and the realization hit her just as fast. Kaylee whirled, but she was a second too late.

A pale, long-fingered hand closed around her wrist and hauled her to her feet. A second later she was aiming a right jab straight for Owen McCarty's face.


	21. Just Another Challenge :Gav:

Pokémon Azure

Chapter 21: Just Another Challenge

(Gav Harrison)

There was a kind of peace in tedious tech work. Repetitive motions scaled down to minute sizes engaged Gav's brain just enough to keep him sharp, but also relaxed him in a way few things could these days.

His project in question was mass-producing the teleporter devices he'd managed to more-or-less perfect. So far he found that three side-by-side replications were his maximum limit. He'd fixed the "six feet in the air" glitch through trial and error. They'd discovered, through several spectacular failures that resulted in a multitude of bruises, that teleporting to a new location with their feet flat on the ground was a recipe for disaster. It resulted in a ton of stumbling and tripping, especially when the ground they'd left behind was flat and where they landed was even slightly uneven.

It had taken Gav hours of practice with whatever Alakazam he could hijack, but he'd picked up on a detail he hadn't noticed before. When an Alakazam teleported a human alongside it, it actually rematerialized its target with their feet just a fraction of an inch above the ground. This allowed for a natural "settling," though it was virtually undetectable to the human.

Gav had not been able to fine-tune his devices so perfectly, but had settled for popping the target back into the world three inches above the nearest flat surface. It was easiest to teleport using his devices if they were crouched down with one additional hand on the ground for support.

Gav fumbled to the side of the table and bumped his fingers against the reading glasses Mrs. Broome had procured for him. When his fingers danced along the lenses he stifled a groan. He always seemed to touch the glass, leaving smudges behind, and could never seem to simply grab the arms. He supposed it would help if he actually looked at what he was pawing around for.

Gav yanked the specs closer to him and snatched up his microfiber cloth to give them a wipe down. It was rare these days for the tech table to be empty, but everyone else was away on other projects. In a way it was nice—it was a callback to the days he used to spend, just himself and his machines. He'd mistakenly thought he'd get a lot done today, what with all the freetime. Yet even with an intimate knowledge of its internal workings and all the needed components, he was beginning to realize the recreation process would take forever. If producing three, side-by-side-by-side, was taking this long and going this slow, he ballparked another several months before he'd have one teleporter for each member of his group. That was only factoring in his immediate friends and family, too. When he thought of the others they'd roped in to this undertaking, the estimated time expanded disagreeably.

Gav shook his head and lifted his chin to stretch out the tense muscles at the back of his neck. As upset as he'd been at Jason, Tim and Zahlia for going rogue with Wyland, he'd understood where they were coming from when they did it. Waiting around was torture, and in a way, dangerous all on its own. Was it okay for them to deploy to the Seafoam Islands with only three complete teleportation devices (or, if he counted his semi-finalized prototype, four)? It might have to be—there was a chance they'd have no choice.

Gav realized his PDA had stopped reading to him. He'd tricked out its text-to-voice accessibility feature, and the "reading" material he was focusing on today was all about Victory Road. He fumbled to the next article, keyed in his settings, and hit "play." His PDA had a terrible, demonic, jittery robot voice and mispronounced even simple words to great comedic effect. Still, it meant he could multitask, leaving his eyes and hands free, and so his imperfect robot voice was a valued buddy.

VR had popped in and out of his head several times over the last month. Gav hadn't realized it until Lance confirmed the Seafoam Islands as their next destination. In truth, Gav had been subconsciously expecting the secret location to be in Victory Road. It made sense, given how much trouble his group had encountered there. The more he thought about it the less likely it was for VR to be clean of the syndicate. He just didn't have enough information to know what awaited them there.

The robot voice was interrupted in the middle of mangling an otherwise simple sentence about badge reform. His PDA buzzed, a split second warning before Gav's phone rang.

When Gav recognized Gina's ringtone, the bottom fell out of the floor.

"Guys!" he heard himself call as if from a distance. His phone was in his hand and he was on his feet in a second. He dimly registered the sound of chairs scraping and running feet. Gav jammed the "accept call" button and said nothing for a horrible, crawling second.

Then exactly what he'd feared filtered through on the other line. Rushing sounds, screams, distant thuds—his blood curdled in his veins.

"Zahlia!" he shouted, and the eldest Nakawa appeared next to him as if by magic. "Their last coordinates—I need them." Zahlia held out her phone and called up the most recent text from Kaylee. It contained nothing but a series of numbers.

Gav glanced away from his phone and saw Victoria and Orion split off to gather the others, dialing numbers as they went. Zahlia gave over her phone and Gav's fingers fumbled with the text as he plugged the numbers in on his PDA. He put his phone down on the table, though a part of him didn't want to let go of it, as if it would be a bad omen to do so.

His map function was up in a heartbeat and he slammed "go" while the others assembled with admirable speed. They grouped around the tech table, exchanged hurried words. He hated having to narrow down the girls' general location first, but it would be worse if they didn't. They'd waste even more time teleporting wildly through Cinnabar, hoping to stumble upon them.

Gav couldn't spare a glance from what he was doing, but he sensed more than saw that everyone was here. He knew, peripherally, that Tim was poised to his right. Jynx appeared from red light. It was followed a heartbeat later by Jason's Alakazam. Amaris' teleporting team member was with Kaylee and Gina on Cinnabar Island.

Tension radiated from every last person gathered around him. The coordinates loaded on his map painfully slow, and when the digital-green outline of Cinnabar Island appeared, their pin dropped on a point at the island's east coast. It looked like they were right on the water. Though the tapered point of the marker looked deceptively accurate, he knew that was a stretch of several miles. They'd have to narrow it down once they teleported in.

He heard muffled shouts from his phone, but for the first time it was followed by a distinct word. " _What?"_ Kaylee screamed, but there was no time to decipher it.

"Three groups, these coordinates," Gav said, giving the phone over to Tim first. He reached out to lay a hand on Jynx, and saw Orion, Jason and Amaris all surge forward to be the third person to go. After a short second, Amaris moved in closer to lay his hand on Tim's Ice-type. Tim grabbed hold of Jynx and their first group disappeared.

They landed smack dab in the middle of a long pier that stretched out into the dark ocean. There were a few muffled shouts of surprise from around them. Gav spun and locked eyes on a couple and, in the farther distance, a group of younger teens.

The Cinnabar Island residents stared at them, expressions wary. Gav knew it wasn't just their sudden appearance, but the clear tension they exuded. He scanned the beaches and saw the others do the same. The roar of the waves crashing against the docks was a distraction he wished he could blot out entirely. Gav lifted his phone, still on speaker mode, so it was nestled right up against his ear. The sounds of the struggle were a little distant, but nothing else had changed.

When their next two groups joined them on the now crowded pier, Gav shook his head at once. "Three miles north," he said in Tim and Jynx's direction.

The last thing he heard before they disappeared was one of the boys up the pier saying, "hey wait—isn't that?" Gav had no time to worry about it.

Jynx pulled them to the new coordinates and Gav blinked several aggressive times in a row, trying to adjust his vision. The pier had been better lit by the distant shops dotting the southern tip of the island, but here it was darker. There were still a few people milling about, somewhere between where Gav's group of three had just arrived and where they'd come from. But as he scanned the eastern shore of the island, he didn't spot any late-night walkers north of here. The island began to curve, and whatever else lay north was lost around the bend.

It was quieter here, and Gav lifted his phone back to his ear to catch any new developments. He heard the girls—and some men.

The second two groups made it. The gentle sound of shifting sand created soft thuds all around him as it accommodated so many new arrivals.

Gav shook his head. "No. More." Once again he disappeared.

They landed around the bend this time. There were definitely no swimmers, fishers, couples on dates, or groups of friends bunched together here. Cinnabar's east coast was abandoned from this point up, as far as he could see. It just got darker and darker the farther north they went, and while the others joined him on the dusky sand, he strained to see if there was any flash of movement up the shore.

He was just about ready to call for a teleportation that would take them another six miles clear past this stretch when, like a signal flare at the dark curve of the island's natural bend, a spark of fire caught his eye.

Gav didn't need to issue the orders. A second later he landed on the sand twenty feet away from the fight.

In spite of the chaos, somehow his eyes found Kaylee first. His sister's stance was spread wide, her arms out, prepared to leap quickly to the left or the right. Several yards before her was a Parasect, and before Gav could shout to her Kaylee dove to try to get past it. The Pokémon flung itself into her path, and when Kaylee backed off it launched itself at her. His sister had to dive and roll aside to get away. A sharp, wicked claw lanced the sand right where she'd just been.

In the dark of the balmy Cinnabar evening, Gav saw red—then white.

He slammed his knuckles into two of his Pokéballs, releasing Diglett and Marowak as he raced to close the gap between himself and the fight. His team members bounded off to engage the Parasect and Gav rushed his sister, hauling her upright. Now that he was closer he could see what she'd been trying to do. The Parasect had been blocking her from getting to Gina.

It wasn't just Gina, though—in the gathering dark Gav could see her struggling with another person, someone tall and lanky and pale as the sand beneath him. He heard more than saw Amaris and Jason dash past him to try to reach her. Before they'd made it much past the Parasect, another battle erupted into their path. One of Kaylee's Arcanines was locked in combat with a gigantic Nidoking, and the roar the Ground-type sent at the Initiates could have liquefied glass.

"Are you okay?" he demanded of Kaylee, turning her around by her shoulders and peering into her face.

" _Yes,"_ she gasped out, struggling to catch her breath, but her next words were drowned out by Charizard's unmistakable, furious below, coupled with a renewed shout from Gina.

Gav took a moment to take in his surroundings, just flashes of information that could become crucial at any second. A Mr. Mime was battling Kaylee's second Arcanine. All he caught was fire slipping off a Barrier like soap off the filmy skin of a bubble. There was movement nearby, but it was Tim—a moment later his Gengar streaked across the sand, flying in a dark arrow straight for the Mr. Mime's shadow.

A memory flashed across Gav's mind a second before it happened. The Mr. Mime disappeared, and he recalled with a sinking knot in his stomach that he had encountered one that knew Teleport before.

The Nidoking was wiping the floor with Kaylee's other Pokémon. Each successive Fury Attack hit her dog harder and harder, and when he got slammed by a train wreck of a Tackle attack, Tim's Cloyster had to take over the fight. It ripped an Aurora Beam across the Nidoking's path, and though the Ground-type dove to dodge, its hindquarters were seared with the Ice move.

"Where's Alakazam?" Gav shouted to Kaylee, catching a glimpse of Jason and Amaris finally skirting around the Nidoking battle.

"They hit almost all of our Pokéballs with the Returner prototype!" Kaylee shouted. "I got my Arcanine's out but Gina only got Charizard before they hit the button. Everyone else is trapped inside their balls!" She pointed at the Parasect, and Gav could see what was taking all his Marowak's attention now; Kaylee's Pokébelt was lying in the sand behind the Grass-type, the leather sliced clean in two.

Before Gav could say anything else or ask any more questions, a series of roars shattered the night, eclipsing the noisy human battles in the distance. Charizard was the source, diving to snap his jaws at an enormous white shape that registered a half a second late as a Dewgong.

Amaris and Jason charged down the beach, headed straight for Gina, who was struggling in the shadow of the Pokémon fight. Gav could only watch in horror as the Dewgong turned from Charizard to aim an Ice Beam at them. A shout of warning hadn't even formed in his throat before Amaris tackled Jason aside, both boys rolling painfully across the sand. Gina screamed, a combination of terror for her friends and sheer, primal fury. She sank her teeth into the man's wrist; he howled in pain and released her arm.

She fell to the sand and quickly rolled to put as much distance between them as possible. He lunged after her, but Amaris and Jason had regained their feet. They slammed into him, one high, one low.

"Is that?" Gav shouted, because he was finally starting to see.

"Owen!" Kaylee shouted, but a second later she was gone. Gav snapped his head to his sister, but realized what had happened when she dove forward and rolled over one shoulder. When she shot off from the sand, her ruined Pokébelt was back in her grasp.

"What the hell is going on?" Tim called, keeping a resolute watch on Gengar's and Cloyster's battles. The Mr. Mime was now engaged fully with Tim's Gengar. Gengar was crippling the Psychic-type with a clear advantage whenever it could actually land a hit on the teleporting Pokémon. As Gav watched, Gengar missed three attacks in a row, but the fourth hit. It was better than nothing.

"They just showed up!" Kaylee shouted. "They could have taken us anywhere, they locked Alakazam in his ball right away. But they didn't—I don't know what they want!"

Gav jerked his attention back to the Initiates just in time to see Jason hit the sand. It took him a second to piece together that Owen had cracked him hard right across the jaw. In a blink Gina slammed into the challenger's midsection. They sprawled to the sand and Amaris joined her, trying to keep him down.

But what gave Gav pause was the expression he saw flash across the Challenger's face. For just a moment, a stray Flamethrower lit him up, and Gav felt ice slide down his throat. Owen McCarty's mouth was split and bleeding, his teeth red, but the savage, feral grin across his face was the last thing Gav expected to see. Owen took a hit, howled with laughter. Confusion rippled hot and bright through Gav's nerves.

"Gav!" Kaylee called, shoving at his arm and pointing. He looked where she indicated and for a second didn't understand. There was fire in the distance—much, much more fire. He squinted and could barely make out the rushing, chaotic outlines of more people darting back and forth. He spotted, belatedly, several members of their group bolting off in that direction to help. His fingers found Golem's ball and released him without a second thought.

The fight against Owen had shifted while Gav had been looking the other way. Owen had bucked the Initiates off and rolled upright at some point. Now he spread his arms, still wearing his bloody grin, and twitched his fingers forward in an unmistakable "come at me" gesture. Gav hadn't taken three lunging steps toward him before Tim jumped in first. As if in slow motion, Gav saw Owen run his fingers along the balls at the left side of his belt like they were piano keys.

Red exploded everywhere. In a matter of seconds they were surrounded—Owen McCarty's team had grown.

Gav recognized, dimly, the Snorlax. The Dragonite was much more memorable, and much worse a threat. But he knew, somehow, the lean Hitmonchan with rippling muscles was new, as was the unmistakable hulk and five-petalled flower of a Venusaur. The implication blipped through Gav's mind so quick it wasn't even a real thought— _starter, has to be stolen._ Then the beach erupted into action.

Golem charged forward, sending painful sprays of sand pelting behind him, and slammed headfirst into Owen's Snorlax. There were more flashes of red, and Tim's, Amaris' and Jason's teams flooded the area. Gav caught a slice of Jason's face, his grim, set expression, jaw clenched tight. His eyes were fixed on the Venusaur, and Gav knew he, too, understood what its presence here meant.

"Armstrong!" Kaylee finally shouted, tears and terror choking her voice. He didn't know how long she'd been shouting at him. "Avery and Armstrong are _here!"_

Though Gav's blood was racing and his body on fire, a chill grew suddenly in the center of his chest. "What?" he demanded, turning to give her his full attention. Kaylee jabbed a finger into the distance, where a torrent of elemental attacks, psychic warbles and shrieks grew more and more chaotic by the second. The rest of their team had joined those fights.

Gav hadn't seen Amaris draw nearer to them, but from his left the Initiate shouted. "Go! We've got this here, go!"

Owen's grin was savage when it landed on them. "You think so!?" the Challenger called, close enough now to be heard. "Want to risk it? Think you can spare any of your fighters!?"

 _Is this a game to him?_ Gav wondered, the thought so hysterically wrong it felt like an uninvited guest in his brain. He tuned the Challenger's jibes and jeers out as Tim finally met him head-on.

Gav laid eyes on the fight erupting around him and knew in a snap-second assessment that Amaris was right. They had all of Tim's team here as well as two Initiates with their full teams. All of this firepower stood against only one of what had to be all three challengers present on this beach. There was no telling what else lay in the distance. If backup was needed, it would be there. Kaylee and he didn't even have to exchange a look before they bolted off across the sand. He felt more than heard the presence of two Arcanines and his three Pokémon falling into step behind them.

It didn't take Gav more than a few sprinted yards to start recognizing the shapes of Armstrong's team. He'd grown up with those Pokémon, watching them battle in the Gym, feeding them, training against them with his own young team. Armstrong's Onix was where his eyes snapped first. A shape with too many arms climbed up its serpentine body, landing blows with not two, but four fists—a Machamp. But before it could latch itself onto Onix's face, the rock snake whipped its huge head left, then a cracking, grinding right, and sent the Fighting-type flying. The Machamp landed, rolled in an explosion of sand, and shot back for more without a second of reprieve.

A burst of fire just behind that fight illuminated the uneven surface of Armstrong's Graveler and the source of the attack, a Magmar. Graveler's hide was so bright and reflective that the flames dancing across it hurt Gav's eyes. It had to have been hardened at least ten times to look that way, and as the Rock-type turned its face away from the flames to endure the attack, Gav saw it was holding its own for now. It certainly didn't hurt when Beth's Starmie dropped from seemingly nowhere and released a targeted blast of water straight across the Magmar's face. Gav left them to it, circling around the perimeter of the other fights, trying to find the area of greatest need. Armstrong's Rhydon and Rhyhorn had teamed up to try to take out an Omastar, but Gav knew they couldn't possibly hang on much longer. He'd found the Water-type that spelled sure disaster for any of Armstrong's team and felt frustration rocket to life within him. Kaylee and he wouldn't be any help here.

But Kaylee and he weren't the only ones here. Victoria's Victreebel snapped its vines against the fossil so rapidly it sounded like firecrackers going off. The Omastar retreated into its shell and rolled away as fast as it could, still pursued by the Grass-type. Before Gav could muster up any real relief, a patch of shadowy darkness engulfed Victreebel. Kaylee shouted, sending one of her Arcanine's forward, but then the darkness cleared.

Victreebel was down in a slump. The lean, creepy Haunter Gav had seen once before during their first fight with the challengers flickered in and out erratically like a vision from a nightmare. Beth's Poliwrath joined Arcanine to chase it through the gaps in shadow where it hid, desperately trying to take it out of the fight.

That left the Omastar completely free to continue destroying Armstrong's team. Gav gritted his teeth and turned to Golem. "Do what you can," he told his strongest team member, and Golem wasted no time rolling forward into the battle. It wasn't ideal—it was three against one, but all three had a type disadvantage against this deadly, precise foe. Yet what choice did they have?

Gav had spotted so many of Armstrong's team, and yet had not clapped eyes on Armstrong himself. His absence felt conspicuous and Gav fought hard not to panic. He scoured the beach, eyes raking through the darker line of bushes and trees farther away, searching the stretch of surf opposite it. An enormous jolt of electricity from a fight on the outskirts drew his attention back.

He was just in time to see Starmie go down, singed and still. It landed so hard that it became lodged halfway in the sand. An Electabuzz had taken away Graveler's backup against the Magmar, but this was something Gav was prepared for.

He whistled and pointed two fingers toward the Electric-type. His smaller, zippier team members scampered forward and surged below the sand respectively. Diglett was already quick burrowing through dirt, rock and mud, but here, with nothing but accommodating sand below their feet, he was unthinkably fast. Gav quickly lost track of the disturbed line that marked his progress around the battle, but definitely caught when Marowak sent a wicked, precise Bonemerang straight for the Electabuzz's face.

The Electabuzz hit the sand and rolled, dodging it neatly, but when it regained its feet it was just in time for Diglett to erupt out of the sand. It lifted out its always-hidden forepaws just long enough to deliver a vicious one-two slash. Before the Electabuzz could recover, Marowak leapt over his teammate and swung down a Bone Club. The Electabuzz lifted a beefy forearm to parry it aside and responded with a Quick Attack, blurring before Gav's eyes.

But Gav's team was one of extremes, either very slow or very fast, and these two were the latter. Diglett popped back down into the sand and Marowak jumped up above instead, both escaping in different directions. The Electabuzz crackled with arrested, ineffective electricity, shook its head, and framed its face with both enormous hands to accompany its bellow of absolute, wild rage.

Diglett responded in kind by appearing several feet back and spraying the Electric-type with a firehose volume of sand. As Electabuzz turned its face away to avoid getting the stinging stuff in its eyes, nose and mouth, it turned straight into a successful Bone Club from Marowak.

Gav knew that fight was handled, especially since none of the electricity would work on his Ground team members, and turned desperately to look for anything else he could do. Victoria's Butterfree was collapsed on the ground, and somehow one Dodrio was keeping both Ivysaur and Vileplume busy, but Gav hadn't been watching the fight long enough to understand how. Kaylee's second Arcanine leapt into the fray not a moment later, though, and Gav backed up several paces to try to get his bearings straight and think.

The first thing that occurred to Gav in a second bolt of restrained dread, was that all their teleporters were back in the fight against Owen. Gina had been in possession of Amaris' Alakazam, and Kaylee had said it was trapped in its ball. This battle before him was barely under control, and he didn't even know what was happening at a third scuffle higher up the beach. It was Orion and the Nakawas and, he hoped to god, Avery against the final of the three challengers. Meanwhile his team was struggling not to get taken out by one challenger. The others up the beach had even fewer team members in their roster than they did.

With three of his four tied up here, Gav didn't have much left to his name, but he knew he couldn't stay. "Kaylee!" he shouted, grabbing his sister's shoulder. "I'm taking my last and I'm going to help the others!" Confusion, then understanding, then fear lit up her face in rapid succession, but after a faltering second, she let him go.

Gav's knee protested as he raced across sands that yielded too much to each footfall. He felt stripped bare with three empty Pokéballs at his belt, and only one left that contained a creature that could help—if he was lucky.

Thankfully he didn't have far to run. Flames danced across the beach just where the island turned to another bend.

Orion's Raticate and Blake's Farfetch'D were already down in the sand, and from where Gav was standing it looked like Persian was on the ropes. A familiar Hypno was unleashing wave after wave of psychic energy at her, and the cat's dodges were getting slower and more inexact. Gav nearly jammed Onix's button right then and there to provide backup to that fight. His hand was actually on the ball at his belt when a zap alerted him for the second time that night.

He turned just in time to see Grumpy take a horrible hit from a dark sphere reflecting what little moonlight there was—an Electrode. The smell of singed feathers filled the air and Gav knew where he was needed most.

He jammed the button at his belt and watched that familiar, worrisomely slow red light begin to form his grandfather's oldest Pokémon. In the meantime, Orion's Clefable darted forward and leapt into the air, swinging its index fingers in an arc that Gav recognized at once. It was the perilous, unpredictable Metronome move, and Gav staggered back to give that Pokémon as much space as he could.

When enormous, dark shapes began appearing out of nowhere and hurtling down toward the Electrode, it took Gav a faltering, blank-brained second to realize it was Rock Slide. It was the most bizarre thing he'd ever seen. Stones emerged from a fold in seeming nothingness, slamming down one at a time, and then in rapid succession. The flying Electric-type dodged several hits, then took several more as Onix continued to slowly form.

Gav had been told that Avery owned a Charizard, and he saw it now, locked in combat with a Graveler so enormous Gav had to look twice to make sure he was seeing it right. He knew it had to be on the tender cusp of evolution, probably had been for years, with an owner that would never concede to trade it for even a moment to seal the deal.

Charizard let out a Fire Blast that bleached the night, and Gav didn't look away fast enough to spare his eyes. He grunted and lowered his face into his palms, hearing rather than seeing the Graveler execute a Dig attack. It was a thump into the wet ground and several rapid shoveling slams of multitudinous limbs into the ground. A conspicuous silence followed.

Gav peered up, first to check Onix's progress, and then to watch as Avery's Charizard took to the skies to avoid the strike. But the Graveler didn't merely erupt from the sand with a silent punch. It blasted free with a shower of cold, dark shapes—wet rocks from deeper in the earth, delivered in a showering blast complete with sodden sand. It sprayed like shrapnel across the retreating Charizard's side and the lizard roared in pain. It retaliated with a vicious downward slash that erupted with sparks in the night against Graveler's hard skin.

The ground beneath his feet lurched and Gav lost his footing, even with all his years of practice in the Gym. This Graveler was using Earthquake, but it was unlike any Earthquake he'd endured before. All the surrounding battles suffered, and Gav knew better than to try to gain his feet. He rolled over onto all fours and rode it out the best he could. Down the beach, he saw Orion hit the sand too and roll forward. He had been halfway to Persian, seeking to heal her, and one of Avery's Fire-types—a Flareon or Vulpix—provided cover-fire.

The ground continued to shake so violently that Gav had to lock his teeth together to prevent them from slamming into each other. Yet he still caught it when a patch of shadows shifted sideways from the rest of the night.

Zahlia's Gengar emerged from nothing and slammed Night Shade straight into the Hypno. Gav didn't have to be close to know that had been a hell of a hit. But a Ninetails sent fire at Gengar and chased him into shadow—and then Gav began seriously doubting his vision. Was he seeing double? A second Ninetails emerged, but this one tackled the first. The pair of sandy-white foxes tangled together in vicious, barking combat. It was backup from Avery.

By the time the earth stopped shaking, Onix was done forming. He lifted his head, slow and deliberate, and cracked his enormous jaw open. The sound he emitted was absolutely deafening, and every Pokémon present shuddered down at least a little. Gav whistled harshly and shouted his command. "Rock Throw! The Electrode!"

He knew Onix was too slow to hit anything with Slam or Tackle anymore, but his accuracy with projectiles was still deadly. Onix groaned and shifted his segmented tail up in a sweeping arc that blocked out the stars above Gav's head. Then he plunged the tip down deep into the sand, and after a moment of distant, deep rumbling, the jagged crate-sized rocks began to burst from the sand.

The Electrode had known this was coming and dodged the first one—or tried to. Onix accounted for the trajectory shift and the first rock smashed headlong into the Electric-type. From that point it couldn't recover its speed and went down under a torrent of rocks. Gav knew it to be a KO without question.

The roar from behind Gav almost didn't register as human. Even as he spun partway to address the threat, he half-expected to see a Pokémon charging him. But no—it was someone very human who slammed into him from behind and toppled him to the sand.

The air left Gav's lungs in a rush, but he flipped himself around under his assailant, struggling to get his arms between them. It was Sergio, his face contorted first with rage, then with sick delight, and even in the bad light Gav could see the scarring around his eyes now. "Come on!" he screamed not two feet from Gav's face. Gav grit his teeth as the challenger hauled back and landed several square hits to the blades of his forearms. "Is that all you got!?" Sergio shouted again. Gav struggled and spat out a sound of rage and frustration that was more a roar than a shout. A jagged thought broke through the screaming red and black inside his skull. _This is just another challenge to them._ Gav got a knee between them a second before Sergio was hauled bodily up and off him.

Gav peered between his forearms just in time to see Orion spin the man around and deliver a brutal headbutt to his left eye. Gav rolled upright and pulled himself up on a knee. Before he could gain his feet, Gina and an Alakazam flicked into existence right beside him.

"Owen took off!" she reported before anything else, crouched and ready, taking in the scene.

Somehow that was a cue. Not two seconds later, bursts of red light began flashing in a point-counterpoint all along the dark stretch of beach. Gav leapt the rest of the way to his feet. Two urges split him straight down the middle—stop them or let them go? The indecision ate a path through him, but in the end he bit back on the order for his team to detain the assailants. He had no idea if everyone was okay.

"Where's everyone else?" he demanded as Sergio sneered, spat blood, and vanished like he'd never been there at all. Something volcanic, deadly, and full of despair erupted in his chest as soon as their foes were gone. A flavor of regret warred with the knowledge that they'd done the right thing.

Gina's eyes were hard, bright and terrified. "We're okay—our fight." Her face contorted into a brief expression of desperate confusion. "They hit the—the device that locked the Pokéballs. Before they left, they hit it again. This is Amaris' Alakazam. I was able to release him."

Gina's brilliant confusion was contagious. Gav reeled, not understanding a damned thing, but he shook his head, needing the physical act to right himself. They had no time to analyze it. There wasn't time for anything but retreating now.

"Take me to the second one." He laid a hand on Alakazam and they disappeared.

The second they landed down on the sand back the way they'd come, Gina gasped. Gav turned to where she was looking and the world threatened to upturn him.

Armstrong was crumpled on the ground near a line of trees, Kaylee at his side. Gav was running before he could register making a decision to, shouting something he couldn't even make out himself. He saw the dark stain growing on the sand near the man who had all but raised him and felt his brain lock and nearly break in two.

It took him a second to realize Armstrong was moving, trying to push himself upright. His pallor and the way his eyes were starting to lose focus told how close he was to passing out, but Gav could only focus on the fact that he was still alive.

"Stay down!" Gav barked, kneeling beside him as well. Kaylee had stripped off the sleeveless jacket she'd been wearing and had it pressed down over the wound on Armstrong's thigh. Gav knew enough to know it was a bad place to be bleeding from.

"Tim!" he shouted, but he didn't need to. Tim was already there.

"On it." Jynx appeared a moment later and put a hand on Armstrong's shoulder. "Jerry—don't tell anyone anything other than where you're hurt and how bad. I'll join you soon as I can."

Armstrong's dazed, almost bewildered expression cleared and sharpened, and then his stony eyes locked on Tim's face. But it was to Gav he spoke next.

"Don't you dare send me away, boy—" A second later he was gone.

Kaylee crumpled the moment he disappeared. Her arms snapped around her body as if to hold herself together. "Where are you taking him?" she asked between pained breaths.

"Pewter General Hospital," Tim managed to get out through gritted teeth. "I'll join him soon, I swear—we just have to make sure everyone's—"

But Kaylee was on her feet, grabbing his arms. "We'll be back at the base in half a minute, we're evacing now—go with him, please!"

Tim hesitated for just a beat, but then nodded. Kaylee, still shaking, pulled back from him. She left bloody handprints on his arms.

Avery, his hair an absolute wreck, drew level with the group. "I'll join you there once these ones are secure," he promised him. "We'll think up a story then."

Tim nodded dimly and gestured with one hand high in the air. His Magneton swooped down from the dark skies, and the moment Tim grasped the bar of one of its magnets, he disappeared too.

Gav pulled in only one deep breath before he let it out on a string of commands. "Everyone! Group up now, two teams." They did as he said, some limping, one or two broken sobs cutting the night. Gav saw them all take stock of each other, layers upon layers of accountability, and after only eight seconds to determine that they weren't missing anyone or anything, he nodded.

"Let's get out of here."

* * *

 _Author's Note: Thank you so much for your patience, everyone. It's been a bad winter with a lot of big events, but things are calmer now. Please remember to check my profile for review replies! I love being able to answer you there._


	22. In Agreement :Beth:

Pokémon Azure

Chapter 22: In Agreement

(Beth Larson)

"It was Hannah."

Gina buried her face in her hands, but winced and dropped them to her lap almost at once. She had bruising—nothing bad, but definitely present, and she wasn't the only one. Jason's face was contused, but he insisted he was fine and barely conceded to ice it down with a blue plastic freezer pack that Katherine Broome gave him. The rest of their injuries were minimal, bumps, scrapes and scratches. Avery was sporting a new burn but, completely unfazed, was treating it like an old pro with supplies from the Broome's first aid kit.

"I saw someone familiar," the Initiate continued. "It had to have been her. I'm certain. Brown hair, down to here—taller than me. And when she saw us, she gave us this look…" Gina shook her head and closed her eyes. She still seemed so young to Beth, even though they were almost the same age. Right now she looked older than she'd ever seen her. "She must have tipped them off that we were there."

Kaylee pulled in a breath like she was going to say something, but Beth knew she wasn't. She was just trying to master her emotions. Her best friend had been pacing for ten minutes straight, her phone glued to her hand. Tim, thankfully, had been keeping them dutifully updated. There wasn't a rush for Avery to get down there. So far the staff of Pewter General were focusing on getting Armstrong treated rather than flooding the Champ with questions about what happened.

Avery studied the wrappings on his arm and seemed to mark them satisfactory. His eyes were distant and tired, his expression grim from what Beth could see behind the mustache and beard. "When I got the alert about the Pokémon fight getting out of hand, I knew it was probably involving you two. And once I saw how bad it was, I called Jerry. Couldn't think who else to reach out to for backup with such a delicate situation." The Gym Leader blew out a slow breath and ran a hand through his long, graying hair, freed now and draped across his shoulders. "I'm sorry. It's my fault he got hurt."

Beth shook her head. "His team was crucial. We barely held our own with everyone there. It—" She glanced at Kaylee, but the girl wasn't looking her way. "It was a good call."

She saw Kaylee mop her eyes furiously with the back of her hand. Beth wanted nothing more than to go to her, pull her into a hug, but she knew how the youngest Harrison operated. She needed to process on her own time, and so often her sorrow turned a pin's edge to anger, burning for so long before it took on its true shape again.

Their phones buzzed again and Beth swiped her screen to read the message. It was from Tim.

 _initial prognosis good but won't be able to say for sure until morning. i'll stay here. Av, it's about time you come by._

Avery groaned softly as he stood, his back and his knees popping. "Thank you kindly for the patch-up supplies," he said to Mrs. Broome. She smiled at him in a way that could not quite eradicate the sharp worry still there. "Resta y'all try to get some sleep. I'll keep you posted, but I don't think there's gonna be much to report on tonight."

* * *

Beth woke once in the dark before the dawn, and then again with the sun streaming through her window. It felt like she'd gotten a grand total of two minutes of sleep, though she knew it had to be closer to six hours at least.

The first thing she did was roll over and grab her phone from where it was charging on her bedside table. There as a message from Tim and she greedily scanned it, then blew out a shaky sigh at the first two words she saw.

 _armstrong ok, but will be hospitalized for a few weeks._

The relief curdled and her stomach turned. Two weeks? It was such a long time to be held, and she knew it meant his recovery time would be even longer.

Beth zombied her way through becoming semi-presentable and concentrated on not tumbling down the stairs. Her legs felt leaden and heavy, leftover weight from a night of fight-or-flight, life-or-death exertion. When she glanced back up at the second floor landing, it was to see that most doors were slightly ajar or fully open. Even more of their members were gathered downstairs, some of them not the traditional early-risers. It looked like no one had slept well that night.

She found Gav near the kitchen and gave him a tiny, strained smile. He looked like he wanted to return it but couldn't find the place inside him where it lived. "We're trying to schedule a meeting," he said instead. Beth knew he didn't mean a core group pow-wow and wasn't surprised by this news.

"Who do you need me to reach out to?" she asked instead. She roamed to the fridge without knowing what she wanted from it yet.

Gav's reply was immediate, which proved he'd been giving it some prior thought. "Spikey, Lily." He paused. "Rei and Ida."

Beth's fingers stilled on the handle of the fridge, but she pulled herself together, swallowed, and nodded. "This is the big time now, huh?" she asked, not looking at him as she pulled the door open with a rattle from the condiments shelf in the door.

"We can't wait any longer," Gav agreed. "It's time to hit Seafoam and hit it hard."

Beth's stomach twisted and twirled again, but while the jolt felt like surprise, it really wasn't. There weren't any other options after last night. A part of her had known it then.

Still, her appetite fled, and she pushed the door to the fridge shut again, favoring scheduling and messages over food for the time being.

* * *

It took a few days of wrangling, scheduling and rescheduling, but Beth knew under normal circumstances it would have taken even longer. These were Gym Leaders, Champions, League officials, public servants, celebrities. Their schedules were absolutely packed, but everyone knew how important this was. Each person they needed dug in deep and aggressively worked the time slots until they found something that was doable for them all. They'd determined a half hour of overlap for everyone would be a short enough time to avoid arousing suspicion.

Spikey, Wilbur, Alan Zachariah, Tim, Nick, Casey, Nathan Fremont, Nancy Nakawa, Rei, Ida, Alana, James Dasten, William Trentolds, Cecil from the PLF, Toby and Lance would be gathering in person, with the Gym Leaders phoning in remotely. It was an unthinkably large number of people to all have a say in what happened next, and Beth knew enough about human nature to understand that there would be some proverbial shots fired tonight. It was why they were preloading a lot of the talk before the Gym Leaders conferenced in. They had asked for as many people as possible to arrive early.

Beth's fingers were nervous and twitchy, acting of their own accord. She kept taking her hair down and putting it up again in identical ponytails, and though she knew it was nonsensical fiddling, it didn't make a difference. She cooked herself breakfast without knowing she was making an omelet. She then proceeded to forget it in another room. It was ice cold when she rediscovered it. She popped it in the microwave and promptly forgot about it again, only remembering its existence when Jason came across it and asked if it was hers.

"Shit, yes." Beth scraped the concoction back into the pan she'd used and added oil to try to rehydrate it while she kicked up the heat. She felt Jason's eyes on the back of her head while she worked on revitalizing her sad eggs.

"We just gotta make it through one last BS bonanza, and then we're done," he said. Beth frowned down at her food, a little surprised to note he was actually trying to be comforting. "We'll actually get to bring the fight to them."

Beth smiled and turned to peer over her shoulder. Jason was always eager to fight, but for once, Beth agreed. She wolfed down her food the moment it was ready, lest she risk abandoning it again, and got a tender burn on the roof of her mouth for her trouble.

She'd just finished washing her dishes and was still patting her wet hands down on her jeans when Wilbur and Alan Zachariah appeared in the living room. The rest of the group had made their way down as well, and Beth knew why. There were several mutters of interest and a few theatrical _ooohs_ from their number. Wilbur and Zachariah distributed little cylindrical black canisters to them.

"Do _not_ open that lid unless you want to fill this whole place with pepper," Wilbur warned, holding the box out to Beth. He leaned heavily on his cane with his other hand. "I'll go over it with you all tomorrow." After a pause, he added, "Get ready to cry."

Zachariah grinned slowly around at them. "I am going to film you all and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. It's a right of passage."

Beth plucked a deceptively light canister up from the cardboard box and examined it. It felt like she was holding an explosive. There were some chuckles and a few accusations. Blake wondered aloud if they screened for latent sadism when polygraphing League officials, and Wilbur replied, "Course they do! That's one of the job requirements!" Laughter rippled through the group and Beth grinned, knowing how badly they needed it.

Once the canisters were latched to their Pokémon belts in velcro pouches, the talk turned to other ways to prep. "More training time for our lineups is a luxury at this point," Gav said, earning himself a few nods. "We've got to go with what we've got, where we're at."

Beth didn't miss the way Jason cast the eldest Harrison a complicated look somewhere between guilt, relief and admiration. Zahlia and Blake exchanged a glance. After a faltering moment, Zahlia spoke. "We've been talking. We're going to bring Zeke's team."

The wave of discomfort that traveled through their group was actually visible. Gina ventured quietly, "Are you sure?"

"Take them." The owner of the voice drew level with the Nakawas. Beth had missed the Dragonmaster's entrance. "I've seen the progress you've made, and by this point those Pokémon would sooner fight on your side against a common enemy than turn on you in a battle."

The corner of Beth's mouth twitched up. It wasn't the most comforting reassurance, but they would take what they could get.

"So by that logic, I should take Venusaur, too."

The static field of silence returned. Beth didn't know why Jason's interjection surprised her. It shouldn't have. Yet there was a difference between where Zeke's team was now and the level of hostility Venusaur still displayed. It hurt Beth to let that realization sink in, but the Pokémon that had tried to kill them on so many occasions were less of a threat right now than Jason's starter. Zeke's former team didn't need to have plexiglass between themselves and their trainers.

Jason had to know that. When Beth looked his way she could see it in his eyes. Gina began to mutter to him quietly, taking point on gently talking him out of it. Beth gave them space, letting herself zone out a little.

Her nerves were rising and, if she was being honest with herself, she was grateful that someone else was handling this talk with Jason. This meeting was going to be hell. More arrivals were due any minute now, and the others broke off into smaller groups, discussing things that wouldn't take as long. Beth vaguely caught Gav bemoaning not having enough time to mass-produce teleportation devices.

Beth was staring blankly into the empty drop zone when five people appeared in it. Nick and Casey arrived with Spikey, and Alana and James Dasten appeared not three feet from them. The two groups jumped when they saw each other, then broke out into smiles. Tim, who had returned from Pewter general a few days prior, made his way over to his friends.

Beth's worries disappeared for just a moment, and her face split into a grin as she crossed to give the older woman a huge hug. "We listened to the episode," Beth said, not talking yet about what else had happened that night. There'd be enough talk about negative things once the meeting started. "It was amazing."

Spikey beamed at her, her face flushed with excitement and her crazy hair even more flyaway today. "The response has been _astounding._ " She rubbed her hands together, trying to pull warmth back into cold, pale fingertips. "So many people are coming out of the woodworks. I've had a _flood_ of listeners contacting me, trying to get into a follow-up show. Pseudonyms, of course—you know how people are with a topic like this. There's 'Black Cat' from Lavender, a member of the LPD, if she's telling the truth. If she is, she's someone who can speak with authority about the corruption that covered up those stories for so long. There's 'Gertrude,' she's a bit cagey, we've really only communicated through email so far. Promising though, eloquent. Oh, and there's even a verified source—a receptionist who used to work at the Pokémon Tower at the same time Ida did. He's a lovely man. Seems very sincere."

"I remember him," Beth said, surprised to realize it was true. "Holy crap, so—wow. They're really interested in going live?"

"Most of them, yes," Spikey said. "Of course not all will meet in person. Ida's coworker is all for it, but a lot of others will probably just phone it in. And I know I can't have any of your group screen the guests I'll be sorting through once the Pallet episode goes live. But we'll figure out who's legitimate."

Beth knew from Spikey's expression that something dark had crossed over her own face. The radio personality frowned, worry alighting her eyes. "What's the matter?"

"It's just—" Beth started. She bit her lip and tried to figure out how to word this. "This is dangerous for you. I mean, I knew that from the beginning. It's why I agonized for so long before I reached out to you. It just… hit me now. There're all these strangers reaching out to you, trying to get scheduled to come meet you in person… it's—"

"It's worth it, is what it is," Spikey said. "Whatever minimal risk there is to me is worth it to get the truth out there."

Wilbur cleared his throat from behind Beth, and as she turned to open the conversation to him it was to see a look of warm affection play out on his face. "It's alright," he said to Spikey and Beth in equal measure. "She's got 24/7 security detail from me and my boys. We won't let anything happen to her."

It took all of Beth's strength not to melt on the spot at the beaming, blushing, adoring look Spikey gave the police chief. She snuck off to let them have a moment alone.

Before long the rest of their in-person attendees popped into existence. Trentolds and Cecil arrived with Toby off to one side, and Beth saw Blake's father pick his tall, lean son out of the crowd at once. A big smile plastered itself to the gangly man's face, and he branched off from the PLF members to touch base with his family. Beth lifted a hand to wave at Trentolds and Cecil, but her pulse was already drumming uncomfortably fast. The Silvermanns were now in attendance.

Beth did her best to control her face, but she knew heat had to be rushing to it now. Rei was unabashed, staring hard at her, but he didn't cross the space to talk to her. The group was full of muttering now, everyone catching up with layers upon layers of babble.

In the end, it was Ida who came over to Beth first. She leaned heavily on her cane and Beth met her more than halfway to reduce the number of steps she had to take. Ida opened her free arm for a hug and tears pricked in Beth's eyes as she obliged.

"Thank you," Beth found herself saying, not sure how she was going to start off. She pulled in a deep breath to steady herself. "I was listening in live when you did your segment for EUTS. It was just amazing—you and Rei. It couldn't have possibly been better."

Ida pulled back just enough to look into Beth's face. Her kind features, once so youthful, now carried the definite mark of premature age. Real shock showed on her face. "You're thanking me?" she asked. "Honey, no. I'm the one who should be thanking you."

It was so outside the realm of anything Beth had expected. Ida just smiled and gave her shoulder a tight squeeze.

"Thanks to you and your friends, what happened to me won't happen to anyone else. That man is gone—and it's all because of you and your friends."

Beth was barely able to fight the cringe that threatened to dominate her features. She wasn't able to completely smother it, but at least she downgraded it to a complicated, wincing smile. Ida seemed to incorrectly attribute it to Beth's lingering remorse that harm had befallen her before Zeke Nakawa's death. She knew without looking where Blake and Zahlia were in the room. They were bunched around Toby now, but not far enough away to have been spared overhearing. She wished they could have been.

"We're all here?" Gav asked, his voice rising above the din. Heads were counted, murmurs of assent given. "Good," he said. "Let's get started."

Katherine Broome's conference room had been reorganized. Whereas before the plush seats were arranged in rows, facing front like a movie theater, now most had been pulled out. Those that remained were bunched around several handsome oak tables arranged in a line through the center of the room. It looked just like a CEO board meeting setup to Beth, and she wasn't sure if it was nerves or the natural chill of the room that caused goosebumps to prickle up on her arms.

She was also aware of Rei's location. He was behind her now, a few people separating them, but it didn't feel like enough. She grimly assigned him brownie points for waiting to talk to her about anything personal, but the apprehension was almost worse than if he'd asked her to define their relationship right there in front of everyone.

Gav busied himself double-checking that their conference phone and speaker systems were up and running while the others took their time picking seats. Though Victoria wasn't particularly tech-savvy, she remained standing by Gav (for moral support, she supposed). It brought a smile to her face.

Beth noticed things without meaning to, little by-products of a lifetime of people-watching. Wilbur sat nearest to the door he could get without having his back facing it. Spikey and Zachariah chose seats beside him. Lance didn't look like he'd sit at all, and picked a wall to lean against instead. The Silvermanns hesitated, and Gina engaged them in lighthearted conversation by an inside corner of the room. That seemed to be the push Ida needed to take a seat, Rei holding her chair out for her. After a few glances cast Beth's way, he sat next to his aunt. The Champs and Dasten took one wall, Toby sneaking in next to the fossil aficionado, and Nancy sat with the Nakawas on the other side of the setup. Alana nudged Amaris in the arm before sitting beside him, as if she wanted him to bump over. It took him a second through an exhausted haze to seem to realize she was joking with him. Beth knew Orion and his father had had a knock-down, drag-out argument over Factor A not too long ago, but they seemed to have made up. They were sitting next to each other now, but Jason made it a point to sit by Gina and not the other Fremonts. This wasn't a surprise.

Beth looked from face to face, a strange feeling clenching like a fist inside her. It was nervousness, sure—this was an unwieldy number of people and they weren't even done digitally "gathering" yet. But underneath that, there was the quiet awe of beholding a natural wonder for the first time. It was nearly beyond her to even comprehend how far they'd come.

Katherine Broome and her entourage of house Pokémon let themselves in and distributed drinks to grateful guests. Beth took a glass of water she knew she wouldn't touch and held onto it just to have something to do with her hands. Gav punched in the last code to get the conference going, and soft hold music played in the room while they waited. Beth was just trying to cook up conversation topics with her neighbors to pass the time when a rapid series of beeps sounded from the phone.

Gav, who had just sat down, hastily stood again and reached over to jack the volume to maximum. The first thing they heard was a way-too-loud Avery bellowing, " _hello?"_ Gav rushed to turn the volume down to general laughter in the room.

"Hello!" he said. "Avery, is that you?"

" _It is,"_ Avery said, shouting like he had to reach their ears over the actual distance that spanned between them. " _Can you hear me?"_

"A little too well!" Kaylee called, hands cupped around her mouth, and the room broke into chuckles again.

" _Oh_ ," Avery said, and it was the last shout they got out of him. He seemed to back up a healthy distance and his voice sounded normal when he said, "Sorry about that. This better?"

"Infinitely," Victoria intoned quietly. Avery chuckled.

"Are the others with you?" Gav asked, the last part of his sentence cut off by Lily saying, "Cerulean's here!"

"So's Viridian," came a voice Beth didn't recognize, but knew had to be Yuji.

"Celadon in da _house,"_ one of the Twin Terrors said, and her sister muttered an, "oh my god" amidst several chuckles.

"And Fuchsia," Janine said.

Victoria who, of course, had a list of attendees scribbled on a green pad before her, checked off boxes next to each name. "That's everyone," she said. She looked to Gav expectantly.

"First," Gav said. "Avery? How's Armstrong?"

"Doin' much better," Avery said. "Course he can't be phoning in, since his half of the conversation would sound awful suspicious to the hospital staff. Believe you me, he's spittin' mad as a soakin' wet Flareon at that."

There were a few relieved chuckles. Kaylee let out a shaky breath. Gav sagged like the weight he'd been hefting across his back had vanished and he wasn't quite ready for it.

"Thank you for the update," he said, scrubbing his hand over his face. "Sorry to eat into our time. Let's get started." He looked back to Victoria and she seamlessly picked it back up.

"Alright, for the benefit of those phoning in, let's go around the table and say who's here." Everyone looked at her and she lifted her eyebrows. "Alright then. Victoria Larson from Celadon. I…" She trailed off and frowned, clearly not sure how to title herself. "Am…"

One of the Celadon twins did the honors for her. "You're one of those darn kids who's causing all this trouble!" That brought laughter from nearly everyone.

"Yes, we'll call it that," Victoria said, the corners of her mouth pulling up a little.

Gav was up next. "Gav Harrison, same as above." There was another pause before he added, "Ando and Mariko Harrison's son. Brock's grandson." A somber, respectful silence came from the speaker set up in the middle of the table.

There was a little gap after Gav, so the next person who spoke up was, "Jason Fremont. Darn kid extraordinaire." He looked for all the world like he was going to stop right there. Then, after a second during which he made no eye contact with anyone, he added, "Nathan Fremont's youngest son.

"Is…" a voice sounded from the other end of the line, either Yuji or Avery, but whoever it was cut himself off.

They moved along. "Gina Ikeda. Uh, Pallet native. Darn kid. Not much else to say there."

"Ida Silvermann. Lavender native. I—not sure if you heard, I was on the radio show." There were murmurs from the speaker phone. Apparently everyone had tuned in.

"Rei Silvermann, Ida's nephew. Same." Rei caught Beth's eye, though she'd been pointedly avoiding his gaze up until now. She managed to give him a tiny smile. This had to be weird for him, and the least she could do was offer some kind of comfort from across the room.

Since Lance had refused to sit, the table moved right along without him, and Beth made a mental note to have him introduce himself last. "Nancy Nakawa. I was married to Vaughn Nakawa." It was all she had to say, and it pained Beth that this amazing woman was reduced to the relationship she'd had with a cruel man.

"Zahlia Nakawa, her daughter." She took ownership not of her father, but her mother, to introduce herself. Whatever brief sorrow Beth had felt fluttered back into appreciative, touched warmth.

"Blake Nakawa," Blake added. "Though don't let the surname fool you. I'm Nancy's son, but Toby's my dad. You'll meet him in three people." There were small chuckles.

"Wilbur Amrhein, Celadon City Police Chief, until they force me to retire."

"Spikey Gallegos! Real first name Carole, if you want to get technical. Talk show host of Everything Under the Sun, and I'm expecting a pirated radio show any time now!" She made it sound like she was a mother announcing there was a bun in the oven. There was louder laughter at that—Spikey tended to have that effect on a room.

"Alan Zachariah, League Organizer. By day." He added the last two words with a mysterious undertone.

Toby, keeping with the pattern of lighthearted introductions, said, "Toby, Blake's dad, tech table slave."

Amaris broke the streak when he spoke next. "Amaris Drake. Professor Andrew Drake of Pallet Town was my uncle." There was that somber silence again, but Alana filled it quickly.

"Alana Valcourt, Head Researcher at the Oak Pokémon Research Center now."

"James Dasten. Former League Champ, currently at large following actions I took at the Cinnabar Labs that earned me some light disapproval."

"William Trentolds, former League Champ."

"Cecil Trentolds, his brother. Member of the PLF. So's Will, by the way." Cecil cast Will a teasing look and his brother gave him back one of his exceedingly rare, small smiles.

It had come to their side of the table. "Kaylee Harrison, Gav's sister, Ando and Mariko's daughter, Brock's granddaughter." There was less of a silence here, since Gav had introduced himself earlier, but a few murmurs.

"Beth Larson," Beth said. "Darn kid, just like Kaylee, Amaris, Blake and Zahlia, who forgot to mention that." Her gathered friends gave little sounds of _ah_ and _that's right_ and shot playfully dirty looks at those who hadn't properly identified themselves. Beth smiled weakly and caught the look Rei gave her even though she didn't mean to. It was warm and complicated and painful. She had to turn away from it fast.

"Tim Broome, 2039 League Champion. Kieran Broome was my father. If you didn't know him, he was friends with Ando and Mariko. He was with them in Rock Tunnel."

Beth privately marveled at how Kaylee and Gav's parents were the famous ones, but Tim was the best-known member of his family. It must feel weird knowing the name of the father he fought so hard to avenge might be met with blank stares and no recognition at all.

"Nick Mentaro, a _later_ 2039 League Champ. Yeah yeah, screw off, Tim."

"Casey Sounted, c-c-c-combo-breaker! 2040 League Champ."

The chuckles that the last two champs had managed to scare up vanished when the next person spoke up. "Nathan Fremont. Vermillion City Gym Leader, on paper. Orion and Jason are my sons."

Beth hadn't expected him to add that to his by-line. Orion muttered from beside him, "Well, spoiler alert. I'm Orion Fremont and I guess I've already been introduced."

That was everyone at the table, and Beth lifted a hand and pointed at the wall.

"Lance," Lance said, and that was it. Beth tried to stifle her smile and failed, but at least took the volume out of her laugh. She couldn't blame him, though—it wasn't like Lance needed any other introduction.

"Alright," Gav said. "On to the first item. We know the syndicate has a base of operations, but we didn't know where it was until recently. Now we have intel that at least part of what they're doing is housed at the Seafoam Islands. We've got landmarks for how to get there."

Beth had expected there to be questions and concerns, but even so she was a little alarmed at how quickly they arose. "Where did you get this intel from?" was the first question, followed almost immediately by, "What do you mean 'we'?"

Gav chose to address the first question. "The intel is from an insider who's been to this location." After a pause, during which Beth could imagine the wheels turning in Gav's head, he added, "Wyland of the Elite Four."

To the eternal credit of everyone gathered or phoned in, no one made any attempts to throw accusations or derail the meeting. "Alright, insider intel," Avery said, his voice a low, disapproving mumble, but he moved on quickly. "So who is 'we' when you say you're making plans to move forward with this?"

There was a crawling silence before Blake muttered, "The darn kids."

Here was the eruption of remarks and protests Beth had been expecting.

"Hold on," Janine said. "So _just_ your core group plans to infiltrate one of the syndicate's bases and take on whatever you find there?"

"I'll be with them," Tim cut in.

"I respect you, Tim, but that's not as much of a comfort as you may think it is." There was a definite finality in her voice.

"Wait," Orion asked, shaking his head. "So are you proposing that certain—or all—Gym Leaders come _with_ us?"

The skepticism in his voice wasn't lost on anyone, and Avery countered with, "Why not?" a second before Yuji cut him off.

"Okay, so not all Gym Leaders, obviously," he allowed. "With Armstrong out of the picture for a while, Lily or I would have to stay back to handle matters in Pewter."

"Not to mention it would look extremely suspicious if all of us disappeared at once," Lily threw in. "So, no, we're not suggesting everyone."

"Then who?" Amaris countered.

Janine, Yuji and Avery all chimed in with flavors of, "I'd go," or "me."

"So three Gym Leaders going on sabbatical at once?" Victoria said, thinking out loud and keeping a tally on her fingers. "With one injured, so that's four off the scene. Another—" Her green eyes darted to Fremont and she almost sounded apologetic as she added, "missing, so five."

There was another reluctant silence. "What's Whittaker-Cheng up to?" Beth asked. He seemed like the type who'd have his ear to the ground on things like this.

"He's already suspicious," Jo or Zo explained.

"He's been making his rounds. Came by for an unannounced visit to Celadon. Claimed he was 'in the area' and we hadn't had any 'face time' in a while, but he was definitely poking around."

"I also hear he's been practically glued to the Vermillion Gym," Lily added. "Although your Gym Aide is doing an admirable job throwing him off the trail."

Fremont snorted. "That's because I didn't tell my Gym Aide where I am. He genuinely thinks I've gone missing, too."

Janine gave a small _hm_ of frustration before she spoke again. "I fail to see why Whittaker-Cheng being an insufferable snoop means we abandon these children to danger alone."

Beth heard Kaylee sucking in a breath beside her, no doubt to defend the integrity of their group, but she didn't have to.

Nancy got the floor first. "These 'children' have been through more than you can imagine. They've made more progress than most of the people seated at this table. I'm willing to bet, more progress than those on the other end of the line as well."

It struck Beth how perfect Nancy's grasp on word choice and grammar suddenly was. She'd assumed that Nancy simply had some natural holdovers from her mother tongue all this time. Now it hit her that for the older woman to slip into her native dialects and allow her accent out at all around their group before now meant she must trust them a great deal. This here had to be how Zahlia and Blake's mother spoke when she needed to impress her ex-husband's cold colleagues. She wasn't allowed to be herself if she was to be taken seriously.

"Even so," Janine countered. "That was before. They had no choice. They _have_ resources now. What was the point of pulling Gym Leaders in if not to help in times like this?"

"And not just Gym Leaders," Rei added, and Beth's heart tangoed into her stomach. "I'm coming too." He said it with such finality even though no one had discussed any of this prior. There were even a few confused looks from their primary group shot to Beth as if she might have promised him this. She shook her head minutely.

"Pardon me, Mr. Silvermann, but that's one more child."

"Almost all of us are of age now," Kaylee interrupted. "Just because we're not Gym Leaders or Police Chiefs or celebrities or members of the Elite Four doesn't mean we're children."

"Very well, but you're arguing semantics," Janine replied.

Avery sighed. "I'm going to have to agree with Janine here, though I'll try to say this a bit more tactfully." There were a few snorts and chuckles, along with a pointed sigh from Janine. "I really _am_ wondering what the point is of getting us involved if we can't help you."

Someone from the other line blew out a breath. When the speaker began Beth identified her as one of the Celadon Leaders. "I agree, and I wish I could be one of the ones to help, but… before we get in too deep here. Jo and I are going to have to bow out of a big trek through Seafoam. We've been doing our homework since Victoria visited us. There's a lot we need to get started here. My sister has investigative contacts and I've been in touch with my friends in the legislature. Given, too, that we're a Vermillion sister city and, um…"

"Of course, no one knows the whereabouts of its Gym Leader…" Jo cut in, and Fremont snorted.

"Well, we're tied up," Zo finished.

"Too tied up to provide backup and firepower to these young people who have been risking their lives?" Janine asked. At least she wasn't calling them children anymore, but it was clear how impassioned she was about this subject.

"Janine," Tim cut in. "I see where you're coming from and I can't say I wouldn't feel the same way in your shoes. Hell, I _was._ Nick, Casey and I tried over and over again to reach out once we realized something was wrong. After it all came to light? It's tempting to have everyone here today all do everything together."

"But it's not viable," Amaris said, picking up Tim's train of thought seamlessly. "I don't want to make this sound like an exclusive club, because it's not. But the fact of the matter is we will have to be moving quickly, quietly, and like a well-oiled machine if we're going to get the drop on anyone. While there unfortunately very well may be a time when we can no longer hide what we're doing—now's not that time. We still have a chance for the element of surprise, and even more important than that—"

Tim picked it up again. "I bet you anything they don't know we've even reached out to you yet. The second they find out? They'll up the stakes. It'll get harder and harder to maneuver. Contingency plans will fall into place. I'm sure they've got backups like that for when shit really goes down. It's in our best interest to seem non-threatening, at least for now."

"This is insane," Janine insisted. "You are bringing the fight to their doorstep already with Seafoam. Why would you _not_ bring all of your players if you are the ones escalating it?"

They'd barely been talking for fifteen minutes and Beth already felt like they needed a time out. Yet with the Gym Leaders only available for a half-hour window, she knew they couldn't afford one.

"We've managed up till now," Gina insisted, trying for patience. Exasperation seeped into her tone anyway.

"You've been _lucky_ up until now."

"Alright, I'm just gonna say it," Blake said, carding a hand through his dark hair and rolling his eyes back before closing them. "A lot of you Gym Leader types? Not quite as spry as you used to be. No offense. Just seems like there are other, bigger ways you can help more, back in actual society."

"That's what teleportation is for," Yuji pointed out reasonably.

"Our teleportation has been blocked before," Jason explained. Beth grimaced at both the memory of Saffron Gym and the unintended effects Jason's comment was about to have.

Sure enough, Janine scoffed. "You're not convincing us that it's wise for you to go alone."

"I'm going to reiterate something, because I feel it's crucial and it was glossed over," Amaris said. "We're used to traveling together. Just us. We have plan upon plan in place for the way our small group operates. This isn't marching into battle—not yet. This is hitting stealthily from the dark. The more people we bring the more likely it is we'll be detected. If they're tipped off and move their base before we even reach them, what good is that?"

"The 'spry' comment aside," Janine said, "Yuji, Avery and I have done a great deal more than you might think in this field. What exactly do you think being a Gym Leader entails? Taking challengers all day, photo ops, kissing babies? We're responsible for out-of-control wilds in our regions, are meant to deploy at a moment's notice to deal with emergencies—"

"You know what?" Victoria said suddenly, sitting up straighter. "The bottom line is there are people ready and willing to help. We shouldn't ignore that. There's no reason to leave anyone on the bench if they're able to be involved in some way."

For a horrible, sideways second Beth thought her sister was talking about Rei and the Gym Leaders packing it in and joining them in the Seafoam Islands, but Gav had picked up on Victoria's invisible train of thought.

"Victory Road," he said. "We know that place is dangerous—there's something going on there, but we can't get close to it again. They'll be looking for us since we've been there before. If anyone's going to find out what's happening in VR, it's got to be one of the Leaders. It's the perfect cover—if someone spots one of you out there doing recon, it won't look suspicious. Especially with all the problems that place has."

Janine's silence on the other line felt annoyed as far as silences went, but when she didn't speak up to immediately argue, Beth knew they were on to something.

"There's a burned-out old husk of a cavern where Moltres used to roost," Avery muttered. "But I gather you've not been there."

Beth strained her memory, but Kaylee answered. "No… we were just trying to get _through_ VR last time. You know, in one piece." There was a sigh from every Champ gathered in the room.

"I've been meaning to get out that way," Avery said. "Was just thinking what a great place that cavern would be for some sort of illicit activity. Who knows, maybe it is."

"I hate to be 'that guy,'" one of the Celadon sisters said. Beth thought she was starting to be able to tell them apart and pegged this one as Jo. "But we've gotta get going. Tentatively Yuji, Avery and Janine are going to check out Victory Road?"

"Tentatively," Janine said, and Beth took that to mean the follow-up talk between the three Leaders and their group would be a delicate, ferocious tango of point-counterpoint. "But I would say the rest of you have your work cut out for you."

"Sure do," Lily said. "Now, rock-paper-scissors, Avery? Loser fills Armstrong in on what he missed?"

"Hell no!" Avery said. "I ain't dealin' with his grouchy ass. You're his sister-city, you do it."

There was some lovingly playful joking at Armstrong's expense, and then the Gym Leaders gave their parting salutations and disconnected with another erratic series of beeps.

Trentolds sighed and stretched his arms forward across the table. "I didn't want to interject earlier, but I won't be trying to insert myself into the Seafoam trip. I'm perfectly positioned to spy on the League and give notice when they're on the move. I don't think it's wise for me to compromise that by vanishing for a long period of time. I don't like it, but I know that there's ways I'd be more helpful if I stay behind."

"Aren't Nick and Casey also poised at the League?" Cecil asked.

Trentolds nodded but pulled one shoulder up in a shrug too. "The issue there is that _most_ people buy that Alana knew Nick from a contractor job before Pallet, but not everyone. There are theories and rumors spreading about just how, exactly, the trio was able to mobilize to help Pallet so quickly." He jutted his chin towards the three Champs opposite him. "Mutterings at the League. So far no one suspects me." The trio exchanged sheepish, tired smiles with each other.

"Well, I'm taking myself out of the running, too," Cecil added. "I can do more to back up Janine's affairs at the Gym while she's gone." Beth frowned for a second before recalling that Cecil was one of Janine's newly-appointed Junior Gym Aides.

"I don't fancy I'd be able to come with you either," Wilbur allowed. "I don't like that you're going alone, but you've also more than proved yourselves capable."

The other adults that would be more of a hindrance than a help nodded around the table. Spikey, Nancy, Toby, and Katherine, who had slipped in. But Beth noticed Fremont did not give any cue of assent. His expression was dark and stormy, and she wondered if that was going to be an issue later.

"Thank you," Gav said to those around the table. "I know you all have misgivings of some kind. But I really appreciate your confidence in us, and your willingness to help wherever the help is needed most." There were a few sad smiles. "Alright," he continued. "So now that it's established that we're going, there's another piece we should discuss." He turned to those who might not have known this to begin with, namely those outside their core group. "This whole thing originally started with just me and Kaylee gathering information, amassing evidence, transcribing conversations we thought might be relevant, snapping photos, scanning documents. Yet almost all of what we have gathered right now is either tenuous at best—from before we really went for the big guns—or it's disparate and doesn't hook itself together in a way we can pitch to law enforcement or defend in court."

"What do you mean?" Rei asked, an edge to his voice. Beth wondered if he was still upset about the earlier decision—it tended to show all over his face. "I'd say you have more than enough evidence to go live right now."

Beth's heart sank. It was the constant struggle they faced every time they expanded their reach. These were all conversations they'd had years ago—the battle over whether to go forward or not, what really constituted defensible evidence, whether it was wiser to take a chance and step forward early or wait until they had someone or something to pin the blame on irrefutably.

And even given all of their past arguments, the game had changed again. Victoria covered this in her reply to Rei. "Like Gav said, we do have some incriminating evidence, but unfortunately it doesn't point to any of the people in charge. The most we can accomplish right now is pointing the finger at folks lower on the chain."

"So we bring _those—_ in," Rei countered, sounding like he was censoring a curse. "Once they're in custody they'll have to start dishing on those higher up."

Lance was the one who spoke up, to Beth's surprise. "They'll disappear," he said. "Or they'll arrange airtight alibis. This is a little more widespread than you're giving it credit for." The last sentence was a touch sarcastic, something the Dragonmaster couldn't seem to help most days, and Beth saw Rei's face flush. It was probably out of anger and not because he was at all starstruck by Lance.

"So what do we do then?" Cecil piped up from Trentolds' side. "I mean, it sounds almost like we've gotta apprehend the actual leaders first."

Everyone exchanged looks. "That… is ideal," Gav allowed.

"It's not the only goal, though," Zahlia cut in, refocusing the talk. "Gav, I think you were talking about footage."

"Yes," Gav said. "We should talk about capturing this on film. Not only would it be indispensable if any of the infrastructure at Seafoam is destroyed or any key personnel escape, but—"

Spikey grinned ear-to-ear and thumped her hands across the table in a rapid drumroll. " _And_ we can feature some of this _live,_ when it gets to that point!"

"I'm pretty sure moving pictures combined with the radio is just called television," Alan Zachariah teased. Spikey stuck her tongue out and tossed a crumpled-up napkin at him.

"No, no! I'm talking about when this is _big time_ big time and they want to televise what we've got! It'll come."

Gav smiled across the way at her and nodded. "Right, and we're going to get you as much footage as we can."

"We should think about who'd be most effective on-camera as well," Beth noted.

"Narrating our perilous journey step-by-step?" Blake asked. The edge of his mouth curled up in a small smile.

Spikey rubbed her hands together and pursed her lips in excitement. "Alright then! Who's got the best PR persona?"

" _Beth_ ," everyone said in unison. Red flooded to Beth's face and she lifted her hand to scrub awkwardly at her nose and mouth. This was an unintended side-effect of her question.

"Nick and Casey too," she added, and Tim nodded vehemently.

"Not that we can really afford to vanish into Seafoam at the same time as Tim," Nick allowed. "But for later stuff? Or for filming elsewhere, wherever and whenever we can? I'm down." Casey gave a double-thumbs up as well.

The group chattered happily about this for a second, but Lance cleared his throat. "That may cover who has the 'gift of the gab,' but you must also consider who is most _effective_ to see. Which faces would Kanto recognize? Which names hold clout?"

A tiny hush fell over the room. "So," Kaylee began, haltingly. "Tim. And Jason and Orion…"

"And you and Gav," Jason fired back, like this was a game of no-backsies.

"Amaris," Gina added thoughtfully. After a second, she smiled. "I'll hold the boom mic." A ripple of relieved laughter scattered out, and a little of the tension broke.

"We'll figure out the tech side of it over the next few days," Gav said. "Start gathering everything up and all. Dasten?" he began, and Beth glanced over to see the former Champ raising his hand.

"Gav, you've got me thinking. The tech you come across in Seafoam. It could be destroyed, yes, but it could _also_ be teleported away en masse. If _that_ happens, it's still functional. Can still be used against you later."

Gav and several of the others frowned, but Trentolds was the one who picked up on what Dasten was getting at. "Counter-tech? To take it out?"

"Eeexactly," Dasten said, firing finger-guns at Trentolds. The Champ looked nonplussed. "Unfortunately it's not gonna be anything nuanced. You can't tell an electromagnetic pulse to target only _naughty_ tech."

"Right," Toby said, picking up on his train of thought and running with it, in his comfort zone for the first time since the meeting began. "It would take out all of their tech, sure, but also all the cell phones, Gav's PDA… maybe even his teleporting devices."

"Unless you can somehow rig those to run off of Pokémon Psychic-type energy instead of electricity…" Nick trailed off.

"Might be tricky to alter the existing teleporters to do that, but I can certainly try to design them different going forward—" Gav started.

"What if you designed devices that could instead boost the teleporting Pokémon?" Toby asked. Beth could tell the conference table was in danger of a complete transformation into the tech table, but then Nick's watch trilled.

"Whoo," he breathed out. "We about done here? Blake, Zahlia—I'd like to work a bit with Fearow and the rest, if that's alright with you."

Beth's heart twisted and chilled in her chest, but at first she couldn't figure out why. "Sure," Blake said, standing up and deliberately nudging Zahlia's chair hard as he did. She looked up at him with that tired, harassed older sibling look, and the pair of them headed to the door with Nick.

Everyone else had stood up in the meantime, but before they got too far out into the hallway, Wilbur called to them.

"Remember! No makeup, no facial lotions, no chemicals of any kind on your face tomorrow morning! You will regret that choice _dearly_ during the spray deployment!"

"Ahh damn," Blake intoned dully from outside the conference room. "I'm just not _me_ without my bleach eyeliner."

There were louder laughs from inside the room, and Beth put aside the weird moment of dread she still couldn't place. She joined the group heading out into the hallway instead. There was a lot more to deal with, and she needed to capitalize on her time with Spikey before the other woman left.

* * *

Though she needed to grab every last minute of sleep in a soft bed, rest wouldn't come to Beth that night. Her thoughts were a chaotic jumble and her emotional state couldn't settle, so midnight found her imitating some of her other friends and holding a late night training session in one of the battle rooms. Getting her blood pumping was the opposite of what she needed, but anything was better than the warring relief, excitement, dread, worry and unresolved apprehension inside her.

Seaking, Shellder and Tentacool were the focus of her training tonight, thanks to something Victoria had shared with her after her sister returned from Celadon sporting a shiny, perfect Rainbow Badge. Victoria had once relied solely, and far too heavily, on Victreebel in battles. Now she'd come so far evening out her roster that she'd held her own in a four-on-four concurrent battle against the Grass-type Gym.

Beth knew she was guilty of the same. Whenever something went down, it was always Starmie and Poliwrath she turned to first. Seaking had been one of her first catches as well, and for a long time all three of her Water-types had been roughly the same level. Yet her third evolved Pokémon had begun fading to the background more and more. Beth would fix that.

What was nice about Seaking was his mid-level status, which meant he could safely train the newest members of her team without fear of injuring them. Beth hung back, watching Seaking rushing, chasing and tagging Shellder and Tentacool in the inset pool at the center of this particular battle room. The feature automatically made it Beth's favorite.

Every so often she shouted orders and commands, or changed up the parameters of the training to stretch a muscle she saw one of her newbies trying to avoid. Once or twice she got sidelong looks, like they were surly children being told to practice their cursive, but Beth just smiled and tried to lose herself in the exercise.

Luck wasn't on her side tonight. She'd left the door ajar. When it creaked the rest of the way open she realized she'd been hoping for a midnight visit from Kaylee, Victoria or Blake. She hadn't even considered that she might get Rei.

She knew it was him without having to look, though she didn't know how. "Am I…" he started, and she turned around to look at him, not sure what her face was doing. She tried for a neutral smile. "Am I interrupting?"

She wished she hadn't hesitated. "No," she finally managed to say, forcing her shoulders to loosen. "No, you're not. Come in."

Rei did, but stayed along the edge of the wall for a bit before drawing nearer. The three Pokémon in the pool looked at him curiously, but Beth turned back to them and smiled.

"Ah-ah! Just because I have a visitor doesn't mean you get to stop." She'd never heard Shellder groan before. Her Pokémon returned to their business, and she turned back to Rei.

The Silvermanns were staying the night, but only so Rei could get in on the pepper spray training in the morning with them. Then they were back to Lavender, and it occurred to Beth she had no idea what Wilbur was having him do to help on his side of the cause. Yet it didn't seem fair for her to ask him for details (so she could privately judge if his jobs were safe). She and her friends were heading off into worse danger in a matter of days.

Yet as angry as Rei had seemed at the meeting's close, none of that was on his face now. He looked young and old at the same time, nervousness and weariness coloring his finely-cast features. "I really don't want to bother you," he said. "I just figured I might not get a chance to talk to you again."

Beth's heart sank. She knew it wasn't a callback to the comment that had ended one of their last phone talks before she'd departed for VR. More accurately, he had probably guessed they were both going to be too busy to have any heart-to-hearts in the near future.

From where her stomach had dropped, it began to roil and twist. It wasn't like Beth to remain clammed up and force her conversation partner to carry all the weight, but this was a talk she wasn't eager to have. She didn't know how to start.

Apparently she could no longer read Rei though, because what he opened with was, "I'm gonna ask you a question, and I know it might sound crazy, but hear me out. Blake—" he started, and Beth was wholly unable to prevent the little twitch of surprise and the flash of misplaced shame that heated the back of her neck. Rei didn't seem to attribute it correctly, because he frowned. "He _is,_ isn't he? He looks _just like…_ " Rei trailed off and shook his head, but steeled himself and barreled on. "Ida said he looks just like the man who broke into her house that night. And you all were _there_ in the Tower when that man died. I thought… but no." He shook his head. "Like I said, it probably sounds crazy. It's just been bothering me, ever since she told me that."

Beth's former fears about having an uncomfortable relationship-defining talk were left behind in a massive zoom-out, reduced to a speck in a vast cityscape of new problems. Lying was not an option, and omitting had gotten her nowhere. Beth pulled in a small breath and let it out, but her silence had given Rei his answer. He didn't give her a chance to speak.

"Fuck. No. You can't be serious."

"Rei—" she started, but he cut her off, for all he'd been begging her to talk just a moment ago.

"What were they? Twins? No, Blake's got to be younger. Brothers, then? So that means… Zahlia? She's related to that monster too?"

Beth's shame turned a confusing pin edge to affront, then battled to reverse back the way it came. "You don't _choose_ who you're related to," she said, but Rei lifted a hand to silence her.

"That's not the _issue._ The issue is _they_ knew which means _you_ had to know. How early did you know he was the one who did that?"

Her emotional state retreated back into the territory of ashamed. "It was—it was long enough ago for you to be justified in the way you feel right now." Beth closed her eyes and wondered if Rei would try to deep-breathe his way through this anger, the way she'd heard him doing on the phone that first night she'd finally called him back.

He didn't. His anger burst out of him and Beth jumped a little, then took half a step back. " _Are you kidding me?_ You knew, you _knew_ , all this time, who did that to Ida, _details_ about who he was, his name—you _knew_ how much I'd give to have that information, to—to _kill_ the fucker who did that! And Blake?" he added, his voice lowering into a snarl again. Beth felt her defensive anger prick back up in warning. "Is it true? I heard Nick say—I heard him say, 'it's time to clock in hours with Fearow.' Tell me you don't mean—"

Beth let out a shaky, ragged sigh that sounded more like a shudder. "Zeke was cruel. His Pokémon were cruel because of that. But they're still Pokémon. They're creatures who were raised in a terrible environment and didn't have a chance to be anything else. What else do you suggest we _do_ with that team?"

"Put them—" Rei began, but clamped his mouth shut around whatever that third word was going to be. Beth's blood chilled, but she fought to convince herself that it was going to be _away_ or _into rehab somewhere._ Hell, even _in a cell_ would have been better than what she knew in her heart he was about to say.

His face flushed red, though she wasn't sure if it was with anger or shame. She couldn't read him at all anymore. "I can't believe this," he rasped out.

To her horror, Beth felt the start of tears burning in her throat. The last thing she wanted was to let this devolve into a shouting match, but there was another part of her that wanted to do exactly that and nothing more. She suddenly and violently hated the fact that she could effortlessly see both sides of an issue. She wanted to shout and defend her friends, the heartbreaking work they were trying to get through because they knew it was the right thing to do. And yet she knew it was Rei's love for his aunt and his long-held pain over feeling helpless for so long that informed his hate now. A part of her could not blame him for it, even though she wanted to.

Instead she tried to make him see the bigger picture like she could. "I know you feel betrayed," she started, but before she could say anything else he cut her off again.

"No shit I feel betrayed! How could you let them keep that team? What kind of people would even _want_ a team like that?"

Beth struggled with all her might to hold onto the rationality she had been able to grasp just a heartbeat ago. In a few sentences Rei had rendered it slippery and treacherous in her hands. "Blake and Zahlia are the only ones who can undo the damage that made those creatures as murderous as they are. Rei—you can't honestly tell me that you believe any Pokémon is _born_ sadistic and violent? It's the way they're trained."

"And you really think they can untrain that?" Rei's voice was so low and unsteady that she understood in a jolt he was fighting back the waver of tears. Her heart wrenched. "I can't speak for the other ones on that team, but if they're _anything_ like that Fearow, how is your _buddy_ Blake going to be able to do anything about it? He's his _brother._ "

"Blake is _not Zeke!_ " Beth shouted, the words erupting from her unfiltered. "You wanted _so badly_ to work with us, and to be in the thick of things, fighting all the fights we face—and yet, even if you were? Do you honestly think you'd be able to put this behind you? Because you'd _need_ to. You would need to accept that Zahlia and Blake are trying to salvage whatever they can from a lifetime of secrets and darkness and tragedy and ugliness. You'd have to accept that, just because they're not condemning Zeke's team to _death_ it doesn't mean they're just like their brother. And from where I'm standing? You wouldn't be able to."

"Is that why you lied to me?" he shot back. "Because you thought I'd be _mad_ at your little friends?"

" _I didn't tell you because I wanted you to be safe!"_ Beth screamed. This was turning into exactly what she hadn't wanted, and even that part of her that had yearned to get all the conflict out in the open shriveled up and died in the horror and anger and sorrow they were creating. "I wanted to try to keep you out of this! I didn't want any more harm to come to you or Ida, and—you know what? I realized I was wrong. We tried so hard to do everything on our own, and we figured out _we can't._ We need support—we need more people to know. We need involvement, and it took me a long time to understand that. But once I did? I called you."

"I almost wish you hadn't." Beth was reminded, again, powerfully and painfully, how little effort it took for him to cut her that deep. "I want to get to the bottom of this. I want to cut out the corruption in Kanto. But you know what? You're right. I can't put it behind me. I can't get past it. I don't want to be a part of your 'core group' anymore if it means I'd be working alongside the siblings of the man who crippled my aunt. If—" he interjected, for he had to have seen the look of fresh, abject fury that had stained Beth's face, "they got rid of the team? It _might_ be another story. But the fact that they don't tells me all I need to know about them. Where their priorities lie. I guess I should _thank_ you for lying to me three times," he snorted. "First by pretending nothing was wrong, then by refusing to tell me what was happening when I _knew_ something was wrong, and finally for this. Saves me the trouble of deciding what to do about us."

Beth's heart was pounding against her ribs so hard she heard it in her ears. She knew she should let it go, because she could feel Rei working up to leave, and it was all she wanted in the world for him to do. But she couldn't let one piece of that speech lie.

"It wouldn't have been a _decision_ you made," she said, but her voice was firm and even now. Emotion had made a ruin of her face, no doubt, but it didn't sound out in her words any longer. "It would have been a choice we made together. And you're right. It never would have worked."

"Glad we're in agreement," Rei said, his tone hollow and flat. He turned on his heel and stalked from the room. Though his parting words had seemed like the end of his anger, he was sure to slam the door as hard as he could on his way out.

Beth had a precious forty-five seconds exactly of silence—she counted up that far to a hundred before the door opened again. She hastily mopped her face with the hem of her shirt and turned around, fixing a stern, level stare on her face, but it wasn't Rei who entered the room.

"Shit," Blake said the moment he saw her. "So that explains that." He glanced over his shoulder at the door still open behind him, and Beth blanched.

"Oh no—did he run into you?"

"Well…" Blake said. "I don't sleep much, so when I heard the—" He waved his hands. "The… shrieking? Sorry. I came to see if people were, y'know. Actively dying."

He glanced back her way and a flicker crossed his dark eyes, temporarily wiping away the bored look of unconcern he always wore. There was a kick of heat, a little spike of anger, and a low drum of concern there, so subtle—yet it screamed to Beth, so well she knew him now.

"What did he do?"

She wasn't sure why, but the fact that he had asked, _what did he do_ and not something more dramatic like _did he hurt you_ comforted Beth and soothed a little of the hot, tangled mess in her chest. "We fought," she said, only realizing now how congested she was. All of her consonants sounded muffled. "Well… I guess that's obvious. He doesn't want to be part of the core group anymore so, there's that." She sniffed heavily, wiped her face on the back of her arm, and frowned up at him. "What did he do when you and he ran into each other?"

"Uhhh," Blake said, glancing over his shoulder again and shutting the door with his foot. "He called me some things that don't bear repeating here, tried to give me a shove. 'Tried' being the operative word, what with my mad dodging skills. He didn't seem fit for a civil discussion about… whatever made him decide he suddenly hates me, so I just let him leave." Blake frowned a little at her, a flavor of concern still there, but it wasn't the concentrated, distilled version she'd seen earlier. "I won't pry, but…"

"No, it's fine," Beth said. "He—" she cut herself off with a short sigh. "He takes… issue… with the fact that Zeke's Fearow is still around. And that… well. There are rehabilitation efforts being made for it and the rest of his team."

"Uh-huh," Blake said, a sound that implied he understood, but the blank expression on his face belied the truth. "I get that, I guess? But I don't… really know what he thought we were gonna do?"

"Me either," Beth lied. She didn't need to spread that around. "Anyway, it escalated from there."

Blake opened his mouth and got half a word out, but then closed it. He quirked his mouth to the side and frowned, it seemed, at himself.

"What's wrong?" Beth asked.

"I…" he started, then shoved his hands into his pockets. "I was just about to do one of those bullshitty social norm things. I think it would've been the first of its kind. I almost commented how it must suck to have a fight that bad with your boyfriend… when in reality, what I wanted to ask was, 'so I guess this means you're not getting back together?'"

Beth buried her face in her hands and honest-to-god laughed. "Oh my god," she said, a grin fighting its way past the bars of her fingers, and she pointed it back up to Blake. " _I'm so proud of you._ You were actually trying to be _subtle._ "

"Don't get used to it," Blake said. "I did edit it out before I even said it!"

"The seeds will never take root," Beth laughed, scrubbing the corners of her eyes with her palms. "Honestly… it was over a long time ago, but it's _extra_ over now."

"Over to the second power?" Blake teased.

"Over and over and over until it started rolling, picked up speed—"

"Plummeted over a cliff—" Blake added.

"And burst into flames," Beth concluded.

Blake chuckled and Beth did too, though hers was more tired and weak. She knew if Kaylee or Victoria had found her here they'd have layered abuse upon Rei. They might have even offered to hunt him down and drag him back so he could apologize for being an absolute asshole, but that wasn't what Beth wanted in any way right now. Blake had even been shoved by the guy—or, almost shoved—and he was still able to maintain his blasé attitude and sense of humor. Beth clung to that like debris of a shipwreck in a storm.

"Well," Blake said, popping a shoulder up in a half-shrug. "Good for you, honestly. It seems like there were a lot of… problems there, and we've all got enough issues, right?"

Beth nodded, giving him a slow-growing, tired smile, so full of warmth and gratitude that she hoped it didn't make him feel uncomfortable. "Relationships aren't _always_ problems," she heard herself saying as if through a fog. It was like she was reading off a teleprompter, not knowing what was going to come next. "Just—the _wrong_ ones are. The ones where you're not on the same page, and you don't understand each other."

"I guess, yeah. That makes sense," Blake said. "Not that I'd know, but… sounds logical. Still, I think even if you guys fixed things… the work of um, maintaining? All that?" He gestured vaguely at the door. "Would still be too much."

Beth had no idea how to interpret that. Even though she knew she could ask him to clarify—did he mean Rei specifically or relationships in general?—a part of her couldn't. She had a way of seeing conversations unfold like fast-moving tree branches, starting from a salutation and ending in a thorny spike of conflict, a gentle flower of parting laughter, or any number of other outcomes. She knew where they'd end up if she asked him more about his thoughts on relationships, and the troubles they did or didn't bring. And, if she was being honest with herself, she was afraid of the answer.

Normally Beth prided herself on her courage, but now wasn't the time for it, fresh from this interpersonal disaster. So she pruned off all of the other shoots and leaves, culled all the brambles back, and created a late night of joking, bantering, and training.


	23. Uneven :Amaris:

Pokémon Azure

Chapter 23: Uneven

(Amaris Drake)

"Oh shit. Oh shit. Ohshitohshitohshit. This is going to _suck._ "

Amaris tuned out Gina's nonstop nervous muttering—or tried to. He couldn't quite help the half-smirk it brought to his face. It felt alien these days. Truth be told, finding amusement in her borderline-hysteria was a relief.

"Anybody with long hair, tie it on back," Wilbur said, walking back and forth across the far end of the greenhouse. This was their meeting place, rather than closer to the entrance, since it meant they could scream and swear farther away from Venusaur. They didn't need to rile him up on top of getting a burning chemical sprayed into their eyes.

Not everyone was there yet, but Amaris could see the ones they were waiting for making their way over from the entrance. Beside him, Gina had decided that a ponytail wasn't good enough to hold back her long hair, and was now whipping it into a haphazard braid. She seemed overly concerned about the tiny, wispy parts that weren't long enough to be held back. He could virtually see the question forming on her face (" _Is it okay if I leave these out?"_ ) but was proud she didn't ask Wilbur something so miniscule.

Beth, Blake, Victoria and Kaylee drew level with them, and Wilbur gave them the same spiel he'd given the first group. Beth looked nervous, though her glances were cast not to the canisters of spray, but to the now vacant greenhouse doorway.

When Wilbur did a quick headcount and said, "Alright, we're all here," Beth shot her hand up in the air. He lifted his eyebrows at her, amused.

"Is, um… Rei not joining us?" she asked, and Amaris realized he'd forgotten all about Ida's nephew.

"He made arrangements to do this with me some other time," Wilbur said. "Something came up and he had to jet."

"Don't worry, we'll get 'im," Alan Zachariah said, and Beth gave him a weak, weird smile.

"Ohhh my god oh my god. Okay. Alright," Gina was muttering to herself again, and she wasn't the only one who looked a little green around the gills now.

Kaylee, normally all about new experiences, was decidedly pale. Victoria just looked furious, which Amaris knew was her go-to coverup for any other emotion, and Jason, drumming his foot on the grass a mile a minute, grumbled over to Gina, "Yeah, that? All that? _Not helping."_

"Let me _express myself,"_ Gina snapped back, but there didn't seem to be any real heat in their argument.

"My hand is about to express itself upside your heads," Amaris drawled, and when both Initiates looked at him with not irritation but differing flavors of curious interest, Amaris had to fight hard not to clam up. A part of him wanted to be more involved in the group again. He'd been out of sorts for so long that it was hard to remember what it felt like not to be. But when his friends assigned so much meaning and weight to even small gestures like this, it just made Amaris feel conspicuous. The spotlight wasn't helping him return to normal. He just wasn't sure how to ask that they dim down those lights.

"I'm going to debunk some myths for you!" Wilbur was saying, and Amaris focused back in. "Milk does _not_ make this better. Please do _not_ put milk in your eyes!" Gav looked down, a little guiltily, and Amaris snorted. He didn't put it past the eldest Harrison to have researched all manner of chemical reactions that might neutralize this spray. "Rinse with water, keep your damn eyes _open._ Airing yourself out is the single best thing you can do when this thing is done!"

Zachariah took over, and Amaris was not surprised to see he had Tim's phone held in his hands. Apparently he hadn't been kidding about filming it. "When you shower tonight, it _will_ reactivate. If you can handle a cold shower, do that. All these vapors in hot water will be concentrated hell."

"Remind me again why we're doing this?" Victoria asked, a steel edge in her voice.

"Besides you and AZ being sadists?" Beth groaned, now beginning to give in to her own flavor of nerves.

"Do you really want the first time you experience this to be in an emergency setting? There's such a thing as friendly fire," Wilbur pointed out. There was a collective sagging of shoulders around their group.

"Fine," several of them murmured, and others nodded bleakly.

"Alright!" Wilbur said. "Hair tied back? Faces clean? No lotions, no makeup?" There were grim nods, and now Amaris began to feel his own curl of sickening dread that had been absent all the way up until this moment. Now that they were moving into position, the reality of what they were about to face hit him.

"Remember! Eyes open," Wilbur said. "If you close 'em at the last second, I _will_ make you open 'em again so we get a direct hit."

"Good god," Jason blurted out from beside him, apparently unable to help himself.

"And don't move!" AZ said. "If you faceplant, remember… it's aaall gonna be on camera. Wait for your buddy to come lead you to the water." Kaylee gave a long, drawn out _fuuuck_ from down the line, and all around Amaris there was last-minute shuffling as the line redistributed itself. He stayed put but got new neighbors on both sides. Tim and Orion tailed the line, apparently alright with the sheer apprehension and dread that came with going last.

Wilbur, who wasn't as quick with his cane, took over the filming, and Zachariah pulled out the first of three canisters. These little cylinders didn't actually hold much chemical, enough for about a twelve second stream. The ones they would be taking with them to Seafoam held more.

The first person in line was Jason. Amaris wasn't sure if he just wanted to get it over with, or if a sick part of Fremont's youngest son was looking forward to this brand-new, intense experience. Amaris didn't mean to look, but couldn't help himself at the last second. He stepped out of line just enough to catch Jason taking a stream of liquid straight into his right eye. Alan Zachariah had impeccable aim.

"Ah shit," Jason muttered quietly, swiping the worst of the stuff off his face with only one hand, like he'd been instructed. Zachariah moved straight down the line to Gina next, who Amaris _knew_ was trying to get it out of the way early. By the time she'd been sprayed, as well as Gav and Kaylee, Amaris was starting to wonder if this stuff was really all it was cracked up to be.

That was when Jason started shouting. Zahlia twitched a little in place, but held steady admirably as she got her spray next. Blake was the only person now between Amaris and his exposure. Like clockwork down the line, people started reacting.

"Oh my god—oh, oh god," Gina said, and Amaris saw her crouch down, stand back up, then crouch down again like she didn't know what would make it feel better. Jason was a stream of profanity and had wandered out of line, but Amaris saw his "buddy" swoop forward to assist him. Fremont was the one who led Jason over to the washing station Katherine Broome had set up for them, and Amaris turned forward. Blake had just taken his spray in the face.

Amaris sucked in a breath and thought he'd have a second to steel himself, but Zachariah was brutally efficient. The stream hit him dead center in his right eye, and he could see why Jason's first reaction was to simply swear out of shock. It wasn't nice getting water in your eye at high speeds. Amaris blinked rapidly, swiped the stuff off with one hand, and immediately had to resist the almost overwhelming urge to rub at his eye even more. They'd been carefully instructed not to do that.

Kaylee was reacting now. He heard her shrill laugh coupled with an, "oo-hoo that's _spicy,"_ that made one or two of the others laugh. Most of them were too distracted with their own symptoms.

Amaris heard Zachariah move down the line to finish the rest of them, and waited for the burn to begin. It happened about fifteen seconds after contact.

Amaris had once touched just the very corner of his eye with hot sauce while eating lunch in primary. It had been terrible—his eye had watered immediately and he'd gone the rest of the day in a leering squint.

This was nothing at all like that. This was hot sauce sprayed directly _into_ his eye, which not only screamed and burned there, but caused prickling, heated pain around the rest of his face that had been touched. He gritted his teeth and let out a low stream of curses. As if that was her cue, Alana stepped forward and offered her hand.

"I don't need it," Amaris snapped, and Alana snorted and grabbed him anyway. She led him over to the water, and when he barked, "I'm _fine,"_ again he could almost see her rolling her eyes even though his good eye was nearly shut from the pain in his bad one.

"You'll feel pretty dumb if you have to stay back from Seafoam because you fell and broke your ankle," Alana said. Amaris detected the note of humor in her voice.

"I hear you laughing at my pain, you vile woman," he growled. Alana put a hand on the back of his neck to nudge him down.

"Water's right there, and I'm doing no such thing," she replied through clear laughter.

The water was divine and Amaris immediately decided his new home would be right here, with his eye open under the cool stream until his dying day. He dimly registered sounds, but couldn't see a damned thing yet. Nearby Gina asked, "Oh my god, does yours _burn_ like this? I mean this _bad_?" Amaris burst out a short laugh and caught Jason's reply: "Was that question really necessary!?"

"Oh my god," he heard Kaylee say, and the way her voice was distorting told him she was likely bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. "Yo, AZ! Got a bottle for my tacos? Ohh god this sucks, holy shit."

"That's good," Alana said, tugging at the back of Amaris' shirt, but he swatted her away. "Hey, you're not supposed to stay there. In and out."

"Kindly screw off," Amaris replied, and Alana snorted at him and turned the water he was using off. He leered at her with his mostly-good eye, a promise of a lifelong grudge communicated with just a look.

He let her direct him to the side, though, and wound up having to hold his eyelid open periodically to air it out. It just didn't want to do it on its own. Zahlia was glued to a wall, staring ahead with a look on her face like she was trying to set the far side of the greenhouse on fire. It had to be some kind of weird Nakawa pain management meditation.

Amaris' eye started to tear up wildly and he cursed and walked in a tight circle, like he could get away from the renewed stinging burn. Someone crossed by him and Zachariah said a second later, "Good! You want it to tear up like that, best thing for it."

"Go die," Amaris bit back, not ready to play nice with the man who'd done this to him. It sounded like the laugh AZ gave was a full-bodied, head-tilted-back one.

"Yeah, that's somewhere at the very bottom of the list of mean things people have said to me after exposure. You all are remarkably polite." Amaris wished he was less blind so he could aim a kick at the man's backside to demonstrate exactly how polite he could be.

He somehow managed to get his eye open again, and was rewarded with the sight of Blake just blinking a little, seeming perplexed and uncomfortable. "I mean it's _warm,_ yeah, and I've got crap in my eye and all… I guess it stings?"

Gav barked out a laugh. "I feel like I'm gonna puke. I'd say you're just trying to be macho, but I know that's not your style."

Wilbur cut in. "Ahh, we have someone immune. It happens, every so often."

"Lucky bastard," Kaylee groaned, and Victoria gritted out from beside her, " _I am decidedly not immune."_

Amaris wasn't sure at this point if laughter or tears were the cause of the sounds around him, and focused instead on picturing brilliantly satisfying scenes that involved dunking Wilbur and AZ face-first into brimming pots of this stuff.

* * *

Later, with the others gathered around the unlit fireplace in the living room, mugs of cold beverages clutched in their hands, Beth gave them a rundown of what they could expect at the Seafoam Islands.

"You would think what with the islands being in line with Cinnabar, and so far south, that the climate would be tropical all the way through." There were some dim nods from the others, all of them still squinting and wincing. Beth's face had a blotchy series of red patches across it from where the spray had left its stinging evidence behind. She wasn't the only one. "But that's not true. When we touch down it'll be sunny and nice, and if what I've read is true, we'll be dealing with tropical cave conditions too, for a time."

"For a time?" Jason asked, reaching his hand halfway to his eye before remembering himself and putting it back down on his knee.

"For a time," Beth repeated. "Farther down there's a bit of a natural phenomenon. Ice-types make that system of caves their home, and they've established their own ecosystem farther in. It's icy there 24/7/365."

The others let out a whoosh of air and scattered groans. "Okay so, pack for warmer weather… and then for stupid cold weather," Kaylee interpreted. Her mood visibly soured at this news. "Funnn."

" _Right?"_ Beth said, teasingly hitching an excited grin to her face. "It's gonna be _so great, you guys._ Oh! Before I forget—we'll actually need hiking sticks, too."

Gav nodded, his eyes shifting thoughtfully to the side. "Because it'll be slippery in the cave, in that first part. And then hell, deeper in, it'll be icy. So either way, we'll need great non-skid boots too. We can get one of the others to swing by Pewter Gym to pick up the hiking sticks. We always had a big stash there."

"Perfect!" Beth said. Victoria pulled a notebook out and jotted key points down for them while the group hashed out the finer details of what they needed to bring—either for their project, or merely for survival.

Amaris watched listlessly as the eldest Larson sister tore sheet after sheet off her book, delegating entire pages for things Amaris was sure she didn't need a full sheaf for, but he was always proven wrong. She came back to a previously lonely sheet with only one item to fill it up with five or six more notes without fail.

"Oh," Blake said, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. "Victoria." The redhead looked up. With great emphasis, Blake added, "Ear-fucking-plugs."

The group was still laughing a little as they drew the meeting to a close and dispersed.

* * *

Normally Amaris liked to be packed early, ready for everything several days or even weeks in advance. But he didn't much feel like being productive at the moment. It was his new norm, having to fight tooth-and-nail to motivate himself through what felt like a lazy, forgetful, sluggish brain fog. Instead he went against his nature as a redhead and let himself out into the greenhouse to soak up what might be the last sun he'd see for many long weeks.

It was too much to hope for that the greenhouse would be abandoned, but he'd expected it to be Jason he encountered out here. Instead he interrupted Zahlia and Orion. He thought it was just Orion at first, but the way the oldest Fremont brother was standing looked odd. When the two casually broke apart, he realized that Orion had had his arms looped around Zahlia from behind, stooping a little to rest the side of his face against her temple.

Amaris had missed the part where they'd made up. This wasn't surprising—he was sure he'd missed a lot more than that. Though normally never one to change his own plans for someone else, he had to fight the urge to excuse himself to let them have time alone.

Zahlia seemed to see that inclination flash across his face, stoic though it still was. "It's a nice day," she said, and in those four words she let him know they wouldn't want him to miss it on their account.

Amaris pulled one shoulder up. "I'll be burnt to a crisp in ten minutes, I'm sure," he mumbled.

"Yeah, the heat doesn't feel too good on this," Orion said, gesturing to his still blotchy face. "But if you face away from it, it's not so bad."

Amaris did as Orion suggested. Something dug at him and a big part of him didn't want to examine it. Seeing them like that, wrapped up in each other, finding one another again like true north even after all the shit they'd been through—some of it they'd put each other through directly—it was a little much for him and he couldn't quite place why.

The profound loneliness that he never let himself feel opened a hole in his chest, which filled immediately with irritation at himself. To be thinking things like this, mere days before they embarked on another perilous journey, was pointless and foolish.

"So you really think the team will obey?" he asked Zahlia, just to have something to take his mind off it.

Zahlia hesitated, and when she answered he appreciated her honesty. "I don't know. I think there's weight to what Lance said. It was my and Blake's reasoning when we made this decision. We can get closer to Zeke's team now. They know us, and haven't tried to attack in days."

Amaris was unsuccessful at stifling a scoff. To his surprise, Orion chuckled rather than front up at a perceived slight against his woman. "I know. That was my reaction, too." Amaris looked over in time to see Zahlia roll her eyes at Orion, and he gave her a sheepish smile in return. It tugged up one side of his face in a way that both looked foreign and familiar.

"Anyway," Zahlia said. "I do think they're more likely to fight against common enemies at this point. If it comes to it, I don't want to be left wishing I had more firepower."

Amaris nodded, slowly and thoughtfully. It was a good point. He didn't agree completely, but he could see why they were doing this. Zahlia's phone hummed against her leg and she sighed.

"That's my food timer," she explained to the boys. "I'm helping out Mrs. Broome today. There were a ton of dishes leftover from last night, so she's a little behind on the whole…"

Zahlia trailed off and Amaris finished for her. "'Selflessly feeding hoards of hungry mouths' thing?"

"Something like that," Zahlia said. She cast him a tiny, humorous look. Then she excused herself, and it was only Orion and Amaris left out in one of their last sunny days.

For a second Amaris couldn't place why he felt suddenly uncomfortable, but then it hit him. Orion was the only one Amaris had ever told about Finn. The second he realized it he struggled not to let it show in his posture, scrambling through his mental files for something harmless and innocuous to talk about.

But it was as if Orion had scented blood in the water. There was a heaviness that preceded what he said, and Amaris was almost one hundred percent sure he would bring up the very topic he was dreading most.

Instead the oldest Fremont brother said, "In Cinnabar. In that last fight. I saw what you did."

There was a kick of icy dread in Amaris' chest, like a school boy called out on cheating magnified a hundred fold. What _had_ he done? Thankfully Orion didn't leave him in suspense, wracking his brain, for very long.

"That Dewgong could have killed you and Jason both, but you saved him." It took Amaris a faltering second to even remember the scene—everything had gone by in such a blur.

"Oh," he said, not sure why he sounded disappointed. He certainly also sounded doubtful, and Orion picked up on it and faced him more fully. It almost looked like a challenge, a demand for Amaris to stand down, and he wondered if this was part of his alpha gene posturing coming into play.

"No," he said. "You did. So I'm wondering if, eventually, it will be enough for you."

Here it was. Just when Amaris hadn't thought it was coming, Orion laid it all out on the table. He refused to make eye contact, knowing that an instinctive part of Orion probably enjoyed that fact. "It's not some cosmic tally sheet," Amaris said. "It's not going to be 'enough' because it can't be undone."

Orion snorted unkindly. "Of course it can't be undone. I'm one of the few people who understands exactly what you mean." Amaris dared to look back at him, but the hard edge in Orion's bright blue eyes had subsided. "I'm not sure if you know, but Zahlia's the reason my father's still alive."

It took Amaris a second to put together why that might be, but then it hit him, and everything made perfect sense. Amaris filled in the blanks: she'd reached out to Nancy—Nancy had reached out to Janine.

Amaris nodded to show he understood, and Orion sighed. "So essentially, I killed her brother and she saved my father. If you want to talk about uneven."

Amaris couldn't fathom it. The idea of falling back into the kind of vulnerable, trusting relationship the two of them shared, knowing what Orion had just told him—it was beyond him. Amaris could barely handle being around his own friends right now, and he didn't particularly owe any of them anything. At least, not a blood debt like that.

"I know it sounds weird," Orion said. "And for a long time I didn't try to fix it, because of the exact things that are going through your head now." Amaris bristled just a little at the implication that Orion knew all his intimate secrets—he couldn't possibly—but he was also reasonable enough to know he was the one who could guess the closest.

"Point taken," Amaris let out on a sigh, itching to leave. Maybe if he conceded, Orion would stop trying to talk at him while he walked away.

Orion chuckled softly, and it didn't feel at all like an insult. If anything, it was tinged with sadness. "No, it's not," he said, quietly. "But I hope you'll think about it." The eldest Fremont brother said no more as he took his leave from the greenhouse.

* * *

When they teleported in it was whiplash. Amaris went from standing in a dimly-lit living room with only overcast, diffuse light filtering in through the window to blinking myopically in the sun. A bleached sky stretched overhead as far as he could see. He wasn't the only one who murmured, rubbed his eyes and shuffled away to regroup.

While he was looking down at the equally blinding ground he dug the toe of his new boot into the sand. Even this looked different than he was used to. The sand here was fine, not coarse like the stuff sported by Pallet's southern beaches several miles away from the true border of his hometown. This sand was powdery and delicate, and almost pure white as far as he could tell.

Amaris peered around at the pale horizon, the darker blue line of the ocean sharing the space generously with the never-ending sky through a haze. He saved looking over to the actual caverns last, and was amused to note that signs pointed the way. The cave entrance couldn't be missed—it was enormous. The dark opening in the low-slung mountain could have easily swallowed a two-storey apartment.

Beth, her brown hair tugged back into its usual ponytail, her thumbs looped into the straps of her backpack, looked for all the world like an excited kid ready to catch the bus on her first day of school. "Ready kids!?" she called back to them, and there was an appropriate mix of disgruntled replies. Amaris approved.

They hiked a short way up the beach toward the mouth of the cave, and Amaris took note of the absolute lack of plants. There was, however, some dripping moss hanging from the top lip of the cave entrance.

"It's gonna get dark in there pretty fast," Beth warned. "There are supposed to be lights, or so they say, but… you know. Flashlights out anyway."

"Do you think we'll need the walking sticks yet?" Gina asked.

It looked like Beth was about to say _naaah_ but then reconsidered when she stared longer at who was asking the question. "Umm… maybe," she said, and Gina gave her a withering but perfectly understanding smile. The girl did know her weaknesses; Amaris had to give her that.

They passed beneath the enormous outer edge of the cave, and Amaris somehow thought it would feel more significant. It really didn't, and what was more, the interior of the Seafoam Islands was bizarrely normal. All it boasted were uneven, rocky surfaces and a mostly beaten path that wound around obstacles that couldn't be crushed down by thousands of trampling feet. There was a lingering, salty tinge to the air, but it started to fade as they left the beach behind them.

Beth was right. The layout of the cave shifted and took them to the right quickly, plunging them into an almost complete darkness not far down the tunnel. Amaris' thumb was on the button of his flashlight when the first group of mineral lights lit up on the floor before them. It was a ripple effect of pale turquoise light that stretched along in two rows, marking a clear path for them to follow. There were small sighs of relief from their group and the rustle of fabric as flashlights were tucked back into pockets.

"We'll see how long these little guys last, I guess," Beth said.

"Hey! There's a couple of signs up ahead, too," Kaylee noted, and the group shuffled around to read them. Amaris couldn't for the life of him understand why someone didn't just read them aloud.

FALLING BOULDERS: STAY CLEAR

STRONG CURRENTS: DO NOT SWIM

Those two looked like older signs, a holdover from decades past, but new ones had been added beneath thick plastic displays. They also housed informational summaries, maps (which were photographed immediately), and tips and warnings detailed in a bullet-pointed list. Amaris thought he heard Victoria sigh softly over it.

"It says that later on there'll be an opportunity to climb through an area of the caves to get through to the other side quicker. Handholds, footholds, safety harnesses…" she read aloud to them. "But it's telling whoever tries that they need to have a buddy. I mean, they can't enforce it, but it's a legal liability thing. They've got to post a warning here."

"And for those who don't feel like rock climbing in a slippery cave, they can go around the long way which doesn't involve climbing at all. Just more of these mineral light paths," Beth said. "And some light hiking, from the look of it."

Gina let out a groan. "Doesn't this feel like how Victory Road should have been? I mean, not _this_ easy, but…"

"No, you're absolutely right," Tim said. "It was like this—well, more like this. I mean, the terrain was still treacherous but when I went through? It was completely different."

The group began to move along as one, but each face was turned toward Tim, expectantly awaiting his story. Tim smiled a little and glanced down the way people did when they were digging for memories. "Well… for starters, when I made it to the entrance of VR there was information for me there. Before that I guess there was even someone who stood out there waiting to greet you."

"Oh! Sort of like the old Gym attendants?" Gina asked with interest.

"Yeah, like that," Tim said. "Each of the HM sections were marked, too. When we got to the rock blockades it said 'HM04.' Along with warnings not to crush ourselves under falling rocks. Not _every_ path was perfectly marked, but there were definite clues left if you were smart enough to find them. For example, the underwater section? I mean, it sounds like someone pulled the lights out. There was no 'guessing' in that section when I went through. It was exhausting and time-consuming and scary at times, but I always knew where I was heading."

Beth moaned again. "If we'd had lit paths it would have been so much quicker."

"It took the better part of a day for me and all, but I was never in the position where I had to camp down on a Starmie," Tim said. There were a few rueful chuckles.

"It also looked like there were climbing holds at one point, at the end part… the chute that goes straight up," Kaylee added. "Which is weird, I guess, since that was the HM02 section."

Tim frowned. "Was it? No, pretty sure I climbed that," he said. "I used my flyer to get me to the entrance of VR. I mean, I guess technically you don't need an HM-trained Pokémon to get there, but it sure helped. I knew a couple Champs who rode there on their birds who hadn't been taught it, and they were in pretty rough shape when they got there."

Jason gave a low, self-deprecating huff of a laugh. "Yeah, I know what you mean. Fearow was pretty exhausted by the time we landed. Gina and Amaris were smart enough to swap out their Pidgeots halfway. Not me," he said on a sigh, managing to make it sound both teasingly upbeat and regretful at the same time.

Their talk had taken them through about five minutes of very light hiking in the cave. Amaris took a whiff of the air and realized the salty smell was entirely gone.

"Beth?" he asked. "Are we going to keep moving away from the water?"

"Oh, never you fear," Beth said, grinning back at him. "The water will be back in spades. But it's farther down."

"Oh _goody_ ," Kaylee said, with such deep, resentful sarcasm that most of their number laughed.

"Hmm," Blake murmured, digging out his phone and holding it high up in the air in the universal symbol for someone hunting for reception. Amaris pulled out his Dex and did the same, and saw flickers of rectangular light wink on here and there as everyone else followed suit.

"Surprise, surprise," Gav said on a sigh. "Zero reception for me. Any of you get anything different?" There was a consensus of _nopes_ from the rest of the group, and as a unit they began to power down and stow their phones and Dexes deeper into their bags.

Amaris zoned out as they walked. There was chatter here and there, but he was able to tune much of it into the background. Other noises were sharper to him, like the distant echoes of their own sounds magnified back at them. That got particularly loud when Beth's flashlight swan-dove out of her pocket or when Kaylee's watch smacked deafeningly off the rocky wall when she turned a corner too tightly. Amaris watched the shadows distort and dance in the turquoise light, a vaguely familiar shade to him. The darkness their group should have cast on the uneven cave floor never had a chance to solidify into a real shadow-person, so frequent were these little touchstones of illumination.

"What's got you burning so much wood?"

Amaris blinked and glanced up, looking the wrong way for a second before he turned to face Gina. She'd slowed her pace to keep an even tread with him while the others moved along, pointing out features here and there he couldn't guess at. Amaris frowned, not sure what to say, and chose the first reply that popped into his head.

"The color here looked familiar to me," he said, nudging his chin out toward one bank of lights. "Couldn't place it."

Gina snorted softly and gave him a warm, amused smile. "Um, your eyes are that color," she pointed out. When Amaris frowned even deeper, honestly thrown off, she elaborated. "I mean, they don't _glow,_ you're not radioactive—that I know of." She lifted one eyebrow and he managed a weak sort of smile. "But really? Don't you ever look in a mirror?"

"Of course I do. I'm vain and self-absorbed, haven't you heard?" Amaris shot back, the banter filling itself in naturally. It was an unspeakable relief, but just when he thought this might be a normal conversation, that look crossed Gina's face again. The coy, teasing grin flickered, softened—her relief was so clear in her eyes, lit periodically by the lights, and though she tried to keep it from coloring the rest of her face, he could read her. Anyone could read her—she was hopeless that way.

Amaris was grateful when Beth spoke up from ahead of the group. "Aaand we're getting to the watery parts. Sticks out!"

"Yes ma'am," Victoria teased, and Gav whipped his stick out like an extendable baton in a series of impressive clacks. The others _oohed_ and _ahhed_ at the display and Kaylee ran ahead to challenge her brother to a sword fight.

"Here we go," Gina groaned, spared the uncomfortable death of the conversation. Amaris silently blessed Beth's interruption as he hid his discomfort by pretending to hunt for his own hiking stick. As if there was a single item in his pack he didn't know the precise location of.

Beth was correct. The water was back, and the cave floors quickly became slick and slimy. Beth rattled off explanations about the way the tides ebbed and flowed in certain areas, water flowing in from rain and the ocean in a series of naturally-carved paths. Amaris just focused on not slipping. Gina ate it three times even with her hiking stick, but flat-out refused to take Kaylee's from her.

"This is survival of the fittest," Gina groused bravely, watching her feet like they were bombs she had to diffuse. "Baby bird's gotta fly."

It wasn't long before they came across the reason one of the two oldest signs read STRONG CURRENTS: DO NOT SWIM. They rounded a corner, climbed up a short incline, and were met with a rushing, wild river.

"Wow!" Kaylee shouted over the deafening roar of the rapids. Amaris, fascinated by the natural acoustics, backed down the way he'd come and marveled at the way the sound cut off just a little ways back. He climbed back up and saw others testing the sound the same way.

"See now, I look at that and the first thing I think is, you know what I feel like right now? A refreshing swim!" Jason called, hands cupped around his mouth, and those close enough to hear him laughed.

Blake, who was positioned at the highest vantage point of their hiking path, peered into the distance where the source of the river was, and hunched his neck the way people did when narrowing their eyes to see farther. "Weird!" he shouted, and Amaris was one of those who drew closer to see what caught his eye.

The river rushed chaotically from a gash cut in one of the cave walls. It looked as if the wall had held it back for years until it had one day given up and split along some kind of imaginary horizontal seam, dumping the violent river out into its new home. There were maybe six to twelve inches of clearance over the top of the roaring whitewater. The vast majority of the top half of the rock wall was still intact over it. In one spot it looked as if something large had broken through, but even that hole was comparatively small. Amaris couldn't see anything under the water, but imagined the jagged bottom lip of the rocky tear went down deep.

"Kinda looks like that one bigger hole is intentional, doesn't it?" Tim called, tilting his head to the side. "But there's nothing over there—no lights!"

"Probably nothing!" Gina agreed. "It's neat, though!"

They lapsed out of talk then, pushing on and keeping the river to their left. The mineral lights led them on. They branched off farther to the right and eventually left that river behind, only to travel through winding, constantly changing inclines and bends. They came across more rushing rivers, and Amaris tried to map their complex patterns in his head but quickly gave up.

They spoke during the times when they weren't utterly drowned out by water. "The first landmark is probably before the icy part, right?"

"Right," Orion said. "The colors from the second landmark are a lot of whites and sharper blues—that looks like ice. But the first ones looked like a tunnel. A big one, though—not like this." He gestured to the low ceiling and the walls that hugged them close on each side.

"Right, so we haven't hit it yet," Beth said. "And if we come to the icy part we'll know we went too far."

Amaris kept his eyes on the rocky tunnel overhead, counted the river bends they passed until that got old, and zombied his way through a tasteless protein bar when they stopped for lunch. They were forced to camp down for the night, and when they made it almost all the way through day two with nothing, a definite air of discouraged confusion settled down on them.

"Maybe the first landmark only _looks_ like a larger tunnel," Gina murmured, doubt creasing her brow. "I mean, the images Gengar pulled out had a kind of… dreamlike quality. Maybe he took creative liberties?"

"There's this definite feature to the wall, though," Orion explained, unfurling his laminated painting and showing it to Gina. "Right there. This gouging is deliberate—it's some kind of sign. I've been on the lookout for it and I haven't seen it yet."

Their group camped four more times before Beth stopped them dead on a switchback that headed steadily down. "No," she mumbled, shaking her head and staring at the path like it had wronged her. "No, this can't be right."

"What's up?" Victoria asked, managing astounding patience for how frustrated she had to be. They were all nearing the end of their wits with nearly a week of camping under their belts and nothing to show for it.

"If we keep going down this way we're going to hit the ice. I'm sure of it. The temperature's been dropping steadily and there's no way this," she indicated their current terrain, "will become that tunnel in the first painting before we hit a lot of frost."

"Then…" Amaris began, trailing off because all he wanted to do was fire off sarcastic remarks. He took in a breath and let it out. "What do you suggest we do?"

"Backtrack," Gav said, gritting the word out on a ragged sigh. "There's not much else we _can_ do. I know this path seemed completely railroaded, but we missed something. We had to have."

Amaris was sure he wasn't the only one who didn't buy that, but there was nothing for it. Half their number threw together lunch while the other half hiked down a ways, and when the group reunited it was to the news that, yes, Beth did know her Seafoam Islands geography. There was definite ice not very far down. It was a surly bunch that threw down their food and hiked back the way they'd come, the backtracking more demoralizing than it had any right to be.

What was worse, they had to go even slower. They stopped to press against walls, examine damaged areas, worry that the tell-tale gouging in the painting had since been destroyed. They peered off into dark corners, sent envoys with flashlights and Pokémon out to protect themselves, but the reports were always the same. There was nowhere else to go. The mineral lights kept them on track where the paths were cleanest and flattest, but farther away from their cheerful glow was a whole lot of nothing special.

They'd had fifteen snits, thankfully none of which had degenerated into a knock-down, drag-out fight, but tempers were at a rolling boil by the time they made it back to what Amaris recognized as the first river. This was damn near back at the entrance of the caves period, and there was serious talk happening between Tim, Orion, Zahlia, Jason and Gav that the intel lifted from Wyland was a trap to steer them in the wrong direction.

Then Amaris' eyes slid over the uneven gash in the wall where the river spouted forth, and his stomach slipped sideways and fell into his newly broken-in non-skid boots. He stared at it—at the raging, violent waters, the negligible clearance between the rapids and the rock it had destroyed—and the one anomaly, that small hole broken through to make just a tiny entrance.

He wasn't the only one staring at it with a blend of dread and defeat. It was Blake who said it, and he didn't even word it as a question.

"Screw me sideways, we have to go through there, don't we."


	24. Breakthrough :Gina:

Pokémon Azure

Chapter 24: Breakthrough

(Gina Ikeda)

They had to go through there.

" _What—kind of—geographical fuckery—is this?_ " Blake groaned, having to raise his voice a lot louder than he normally did to be heard.

" _I dunno, man_ ," Kaylee practically screamed back. They'd set up shop as close to the rushing river as they could get, which meant all they could hear was the roar of the water. They had flashlights, but not standing lights. It was absurd, something they hadn't even remotely thought of packing. Blake had even picked through all of the camera equipment he was toting around as their designated tech pack mule, but they'd slimmed down as much of the gear as they could. Gina had been joking about holding the boom mike. They didn't have special sound equipment, and it meant they didn't have special lighting equipment either. Charizard was their one source of light, and by his tail flame they executed a staggering amount of try-fail cycles to get through the dauntingly small opening.

The very first thing they had tried was to teleport in. When it didn't work, that clinched it. There wouldn't be any measures in place to block teleportation if this was a place travelers were meant to happen across. So they were forced to try other means, all while barely able to hear each other, barely able to think over the roar.

The river was so strong and so fast it was almost comical. It was less funny when Beth and Starmie, after embarking on a solid attempt to Surf through the entryway, were shot backward through the river at alarming speeds. It was only Starmie flying straight up, Beth clinging to it and sputtering wildly, that stopped the pair of them from being dashed to pieces on the jutting rocks that peppered the riverbed.

After their strongest swimmer and strongest swimming Pokémon had nearly met a messy end, they'd tried a few other techniques. Grumpy attempted to swoop down, lift Blake up delicately in his talons, and fly him close enough to the wall for Blake to hammer some stakes and rope into the rock. That only resulted in Blake nearly getting smashed headlong into the wall. Grumpy was an HM02 Pokémon and could take off in absolutely dead air no problem, but it didn't mean his flight was exact enough to get Blake close to the entryway without him becoming one with it. Even Charizard was mad, having to serve as their lighting fixture so close to so much water. The tiny, snippy arguments were getting more and more vicious as the trials and errors bore on.

Once they'd grown tired of risking the lives of their team members, they retreated as far from the river as they could get while still keeping it in their sights. It was the only way they could debrief and actually be heard.

" _Ugggh_ ," Tim groaned, abusing his scalp with both hands and turning his short-cropped brown hair into a wild wreck. "Okay. Clearly we have to think outside the box, the way people do in VR."

"Sign me up for your next seminar on abstract thinking," Amaris groused, but Gav shook his head.

"Okay, let's think, then. The source of this river's got to come from somewhere… maybe even one of the rivers we passed by further down?" A few members of their group arched an eyebrow at that, but no one interrupted Gav. "I could probably use Golem to block some of the current off. Y'know… dam it?"

"There's no need to get profane," Kaylee joked, turning his suggestion into a pun. The group groaned but a few weary smiles were cast her way.

Orion practically sagged with relief. "That's a great idea. There's enough loose rock around that you'd probably find more than enough to work with. The question though, is which river—"

"Or river _s_ —" Beth interjected.

"Contribute the most to that—"

Blake cut in this time. "Watery death trap?" He wiggled his eyebrows the way he did where no other part of his face held any kind of expression.

Orion looked amused to be interrupted so frequently with random wisecracks and rolled his eyes at his friends. Gina was thinking, though, exhaustion making her head fuzzy. Vague ideas chased themselves around her head.

"Okay," she began, haltingly. "So we need to find out where the water's coming from. Seems to me like the easiest way to do that is to—I don't know, drop something _into_ other rivers up ahead. Then some of us can stay here and watch for the items."

Jason snapped his fingers and broke out into a gigantic grin. "That's _brilliant!_ We can split up, each take something that's a different color—"

"Right," Victoria said. "And we'll draw out the location of the river we picked." She was already digging in her bag for her trusty pad of paper and pens. "And whoever stays by this river will report which items they see coming through."

"You know," Tim said, thoughtfully. "That just might work. Only problem is if it's a shirt or something it might sink. The water's so choppy it's impossible to see anything that gets kicked even a few feet down."

"Plastic bags and duct tape," Jason said at once. "We'll make… plastic-bag-balloon-floaty… things. And we'll tie shirts around them."

"Like—like dress-up beach balls?" Kaylee asked.

" _Yes,_ " Jason said emphatically to a round of chuckles.

"Alright," Gav said. "Let's do it."

They divvied up the tasks and finished the construction of eight dress-up beach-balls remarkably fast. Jason lightly punched his a few times (which popped it and made him have to patch it), Kaylee and Beth threw theirs back and forth to one another, and Victoria spun hers around at all angles, examining it for faults.

Gina and Amaris were elected to be the ones to stay behind and watch the river for floating shirts to come rocketing through the entryway. Though Gina felt a little kick of complicated nerves at this, she didn't object. It wasn't like they'd be able to talk, anyway; the roar of the river was too loud.

"Try to catch this shirt, okay?" Beth said as she and Kaylee headed away. "I like it!"

Gina grinned at her and made no such promise as the others bounded away down the path. Those who had to cover more ground rode on Pokémon, and those who were heading to the closer rivers tracked away on foot.

The second the others were gone Amaris got up and began to walk further downstream. "When you see one come through, shout to me that it's coming! That way if you miss the color I'll have a chance to identify it before it's gone!"

"Okay!" Gina shouted back, a complicated twist of disappointment and frustration at herself blending inside her. It wasn't like he was running away—this was just objectively the best way to tackle this situation. She knew it, but another part of her knew that wasn't all of it. If she was being honest, he _was_ running from her—at least a little.

Gina was afraid to blink as she watched the river. Charizard was still with her, but after a time she sent him back down to Amaris. She could make do with a flashlight if all she was watching for was an object flying through the mouth of the river. Amaris was the one who had to have better light.

In a way it was a comfort, having one task to do. She was so deafened by the water that clear thoughts were hard to come by. It was a weird form of meditation and Gina lost track of time, only aware of its passage at all by things like hunger and thirst. She had worked her way slowly through a power bar and drank most of a bottle of water by the time the battered, buoyant object caught her eye.

It zipped by in a flash, crashing only briefly against the lip of the entryway. She barely had time to register either blue or green before she cried out to Amaris, "Shirt!"

Charizard's tail flame burst larger and illuminated most of the river. Gina stood up and looked back expectantly as Amaris' head whipped back and forth, looking for the floating clue. She knew the second he spotted it, and his eyes tracked it as it made its erratic, chaotic way down the river. He held a thumbs up to her and she clapped her hands above her head and whooped. He pointed, though, and she knew what he meant. There could be several river sources, and she had to keep watching for more shirts until the others came back.

It didn't take long, though. Only a half-hour lapsed by the time the rest of their team had gathered back. Gina abandoned her post and the gang reconvened somewhere quieter.

"So was it green or blue?" Gina asked Amaris. The Larson sisters eyed each other competitively.

"Green," Amaris said. "Definitely. With a little pink on it."

"That would be mine," Victoria said, grinning broadly.

"And of course since it's Victoria, you know she's got a map so detailed a professional cartographer would be jealous," Kaylee teased. Victoria snorted and rolled her eyes, but showed them what was a remarkably detailed map with a little legend key in the lower right hand corner and several tiny notes in the margins.

"Well," Gav said, his smile spreading slow and steady across his face. "I've got my work cut out for me." He stooped down to kiss Victoria. It was a display of affection the couple normally didn't show in front of others, but the buoyant elation of this breakthrough was making them all a little punch-drunk. "Tim?" Gav asked, getting to his feet, and Tim nodded.

"We'll get this done twice as fast with both our Strength Pokémon doing it," he said, and released his Arcanine to ride on. Kaylee teased Gav briefly, pretending like she wasn't going to lend hers and would instead force Gav to ride Tim's canine and hold onto him from behind, but in the end she relented. The two men galloped down the path, using Victoria's map as guidance.

"I want to watch this stupid river actually die," Blake said with a weirdly evil glint in his eyes. "Who wants to come drink in the glory of its defeat with me?" Every single hand shot into the air and the group gathered around the river expectantly.

It didn't happen all at once. At first she couldn't tell the difference at all, but then she thought the roaring froth was going down a little. Then either Gav or Tim must have dropped a boulder down into the source of the river, because in the span of only thirty seconds what looked like a third of the vicious rushing current petered out. Beth fidgeted, clearly anxious to try out the water with Starmie again, but she resisted.

By the time Gav and Tim returned the river was a mewl of its former roar. The current was still there, and still too strong to swim against safely—if it was a human going it alone. Now that their obstacle had been destroyed by another obstacle, it took Starmie only a few trips to get the whole group through the tiny opening in the wall into a previously unexplored part of the Seafoam Island cave system.

The second they were through Gina recognized the tunnel. During their days of doubt, painstakingly backtracking their steps through the Seafoam Islands, Gina had truly begun to question the integrity of the visions. The paintings Orion made were near-exact replicas of the video footage from that night, but the visions he had captured were fever-bright and surreal to begin with. The blues were too dark, the teals and turquoises too bright. Gina had a hard time believing something like that could exist in real life.

Now that they were through it all made sense. Jutting from the walls, growing up the sides of the tunnels in broad bands of striated blue were enormous planes of the glowing mineral lights. It would have been blinding, but the bright turquoise wasn't the only color here. There were darker blues that fought against the brilliant lines of light. Not every square inch of the tunnel was made up of the stuff to begin with. There were enough dark patches to make the spectacle easier to behold—in one regard, anyway.

Gina had never encountered a sight so beautiful that it closed her throat and brought stinging heat to her eyes so immediately. It was a full physiological reaction and she swallowed hard, blinking rapidly, trying to breathe through the absolute splendor.

No one exclaimed around her. The loudest sound was an intake of air or a softly-breathed, _oh._ Orion pointed with one arm, dyed blue and teal and turquoise in the reflected light, and Gina looked. There it was: the tell-tale gouging in the side of the tunnel, exactly the way he'd painted it.

Gina sucked in a breath that was too shaky, but didn't bother trying to fight the grin that burst its way forth on her face. They'd made it.

They found a bank and helped each other up onto slippery, treacherous rocks. Gina didn't protest when her friends put her on the innermost side, farthest away from the water. There was absolute, unbroken silence as they walked, all of them still stunned.

"Do you think they ever turn off?" Jason asked after what felt like a lifetime of magical silence. "I'm just thinking, if we camp down here? Maybe 'ear-fucking-plugs' weren't as important as 'eye-fucking-masks.'"

There was one stifled snort from somewhere in their group, and the next second the rest of them burst out laughing. The sound of their mirth, relief and happiness echoed back at them, refracted and magnified like a whole world of others laughed along with them.

The mineral lights did keep them company as they progressed through this hidden part of the Seafoam Islands, but there were patches of darkness where none seemed to grow. Victoria, their honorary cartographer, took to marking which dimmer places they passed through along the way. If they hit a stretch of light that went on for too long, they could double back to steal some sleep in darker places.

Another effect of heading steadily further down this way was how quickly the incline dropped. It wasn't a gradual series of slopes and switchbacks like the easier path outside. These roads carried them along a downward slope for a bit before disappearing suddenly. Gina and the others had to deploy their Pokémon to help them get down cliff faces they'd have never been able to scale otherwise.

Each time they regrouped after another drop, the temperature plummeted. Every step seemed to leech more warmth out of the air, and before long they packed away their wetsuits and t-shirts and suited up in their fluffy winter gear.

Beth, always at the head of their group, was the first to remark at the delicate flowers of frost beginning to grow in pale patches against the dark rocks. They were especially gorgeous when lent the beauty and color of the turquoise lights. It took every ounce of Gina's willpower not to snap frivolous photos this early on.

Gina had no real experience with snow, as Pallet was a little too temperate for it. Each time it got noticeably colder she was sure it was cold enough for ice. When it wasn't, she became convinced anew five minutes later.

When it happened it happened all at once. They rounded a bend and there it was. Stretching out into the cavernous, wide tunnel they'd discovered, as far as the eye could see, white dominated the blue. Textured ripples of frost and ice tapered their ways up the rocky walls, delicate and exploratory at first, weaving fingers together in a tapestry across the ceiling and dipping down into experimental icicles. A little further down it amassed in unapologetic sheets. At the limit of Gina's vision it was all white. The only colors came from mineral lights that were large enough to jut their jagged heads up from the blankets of ice that sought to bury them.

"This is _amazing_ ," Gina breathed, and she saw her words carried away on a puff of fog. She laughed and watched that sound travel up and away too. She felt the chill inside her nostrils, of all places, felt it burn down her throat. There was a prickly awareness in her eyes.

"There won't be snow in here," Beth explained from the front of the group. She turned to grin at them, her cheeks already pink either from cold or excitement. "The Pokémon would need precipitation for that, and they don't have it underground, but…"

"But it's still beautiful," Kaylee said. It was telling, coming from her. "I've never seen anything like it."

Though they were in an unspoken hurry, there was an understanding that, just for a couple of moments, the group was allowed to wander about and take in this once-in-a-lifetime sight.

Gina fumbled in her bag for her gloves, wishing she'd thought to put them on before her fingertips lost all their warmth. When it became clear that she didn't possess the skills to walk, manage her hiking stick, rummage for her gloves and stare at the breathtaking sights around her all at the same time, Jason materialized and held her hiking stick for her. Gina grinned at him and devoted her full attention to finding her gloves, not daring to walk until she'd mastered that.

"Gina," Jason said, his voice so sharp and sudden that she snapped her head up to him with a curl of instantaneous fear. But Jason wasn't looking around at eye-level towards a perceived threat. "Look up."

Gina could count the number of genuine jaw drops she'd done in her life on one hand. This was one of them. Hanging above them, suspended as if in a snapshot in time, were hundreds—no, it had to be thousands of the most delicate, feather-wisp icicles. They looked like individual drops of rain caught in the act as if some cosmic being had snapped its fingers and told the world to stop a mere breath of a second before the deluge hit the earth. The thickest one couldn't be even the size of her pinky. The thinnest looked like hair.

Victoria appeared beside them as if summoned and startled Gina so badly she nearly lost her footing. Jason shoved the walking stick back into her hands. "That," Victoria said unhappily, "is very beautiful, but let's admire it from over _there_ and not directly beneath it."

"Aw," Jason said, "but getting stabbed in the eye was on my bucket list!" He grinned at Victoria though as she ushered them away. Before she left to shoo Blake away from the other side of the strange anomaly he uttered a, "thanks mom," for good measure.

"I wonder what _made_ those," Gina muttered, mostly to herself. Her walking stick was her best friend now, and she used it almost as if she was blind, feeling along the ground so her eyes were free to roam.

"As much as I really want a Dewgong," Beth said, "I'll keep my eyes peeled for any signs that we're coming up on one of their dens. We're gonna want to give those a wide berth." There were nods, some of them a little disappointed and somber. Who knew what shape the wilds would be in?

When they camped down that night it was in the last dark stretch before what was clearly another turquoise tunnel ahead. The uneven, icy terrain was in one of the biggest areas they'd found yet. Tall ceilings stretched across enough space that Gina could probably get to her top running speed from one side of the tunnel to the next before she had to slow. Of course, she would eat it spectacularly before she got very far.

Camping was harder on ice, and in the end they used their Fire-types to melt through a section of the floor. Once they got down to the rock they had a fighting chance of maintaining at least some warmth inside the tents. Gina and Kaylee put themselves on cooking duty while the others set up shop and organized a halfway decent showering system. It involved a privacy partition crafted out of a tent rain guard, shower buddies and pots of warm water heated over the fire.

Happy chatter picked up here and there, and when Amaris said something near the shower station that had Jason howling with laughter from behind it, Gina glanced to her fellow Initiates and beamed ear-to-ear. She only wished she'd been in on the joke too. Kaylee caught her looking and the two girls shared a smile.

Gav and Victoria took over the food so Kaylee and Gina could shower, and by the time they were done, everything was ready. They didn't pack very much by way of hot food prep in their bags, saving it for particularly rough days or rationing it out evenly. It was an unspoken understanding today that they were enjoying their foil packs of spaghetti and macaroni with beef because they'd made a breakthrough at last. It felt indulgent and celebratory, but in Gina's opinion they needed that every so often.

The group shuffled around and settled, passed around tin plates, bowls and forks, and talked not of their coming plans for dealing with whatever they would find in here, but other lighthearted and inconsequential subjects.

The topic that got the most group involvement was the current state of the E4. "What was someone saying in VR?" Kaylee asked, frowning from where she was seated cross-legged, pressed up against Tim's side. "That if you show a strong type preference during your challenge of the Four, it looks good for being a hopeful member someday?"

"That's really not all there is to it," Tim said, and the group turned to him with eager interest. "I mean maybe each member of whatever current Four exists would have a preference when it comes to the new member, but they're not allowed to actively recruit anymore."

"Betcha it still happens," Jason said, smirking.

"Oh, of course," Tim replied. "All the time." He paused, tilted his head to one side as if debating, and ultimately shrugged his shoulder. "There was a lot of talk in the League that the reason why Olivia aced her entrance tests and outshone everyone else who tried out that year was because Wyland gave her insider info."

Gina watched as the faces gathered around their fire flickered to varying shades of disapproval and disgust. "Yeah, I know," Tim said. "But that only gets you so far. I mean, Terry, for example? No one even knew she was going to try for it. So you know she didn't get any help."

"And she still slaughtered the competition that year," Beth said with a sigh. "I really hope she's on our side. Or is at least a neutral party who doesn't know what's been going on."

There were nods and furrowed brows, but Gina moved the topic back to happier waters. "So, are Gym Leaders allowed to try for the E4 positions anymore, or is it just former Champions now?"

Tim grinned. "Gym Leaders are allowed, yes, but they hardly ever go for it."

"They like their 'sweet gig' dealing with all of the problems of an entire city too much?" Orion asked incredulously. He shook his head. "I mean, not to bash what Gym Leaders do. It's hard work, but that's kind of exactly the point. I always thought dad was a little bonkers for wanting all of that tedium, responsibility, blame and frustration for a fraction of the glory that an E4 position offers—or hell, even being a member of the League."

"True, but if you look at it from a step back," Victoria added, "members of the E4 may not need to deal with the aggravating minutia of an individual region, but they're responsible for dealing with and addressing the larger catastrophes."

"Bigger scope, bigger responsibilities," Gav said, nodding. "So Gym Leaders don't typically go for it, huh?"

"Not usually," Tim said. "Though I've heard certain members of the E4 say they wish they would. And honestly, I can understand why—even from a Champ's perspective. I'd _like_ to say that Champs are fit to be E4 members, but to be honest, it feels like skipping a step."

"How so?" Gina asked.

"Well, to be a Champ all you really have to do is have a powerful team, make it through VR, and beat the Elite Four and the current Champ. Then of course we get the necessary trainings and debriefings to become worthwhile members of the League. We get assigned certain areas to look out for, and there _are_ responsibilities, but it's nothing like being a Gym Leader. For how many Champs are alive today we can split the responsibilities pretty evenly among us, turn to each other for resources and help. The Gym Leaders do that too, but there's eight of them and they're all so busy. To me a Gym Leader is more equipped to be a leader of Kanto than I would be."

"That's big of you to admit," Amaris said, eying Tim with something that danced between skepticism and a grudging admiration.

"It's just the truth," Tim said, stirring his spaghetti around with his tiny fork. "So, well… all that said, if we have our way, the Four will be down at least two members by the time this is all over."

"Right," Victoria said. "I was just wondering about that. Olivia and Wyland."

"You don't think they'd give Wyland a second chance?" Zahlia asked, asking it as a calculated and curious question rather than a soft-hearted one.

Tim gave it some thought, but ultimately shook his head. "No, I don't think so. And honestly, I don't think he'd take it at this point." The group nodded, tiny frowns flicking across faces again.

"Truly," Victoria began, stretching the word out. "I would be surprised if Wyland avoids prison time." That brought another series of faint nods.

"Who's your pick for the replacement two members of the Four?" Gina asked, serving again as conversational spotter. She'd be damned if she let this evening degenerate into sullen moodiness. It was one of the few good ones she could remember them having together—hell, even Amaris had spoken up at least once.

"Oooh," Tim said, leaning back. "See, that's tricky, because there's a few conceivable ways we could get a Gym Leader in there."

"Oh," Gav said. "I know what you mean." The others turned to him with interest and he nodded, lowering a bite of food back to his plate. Gina stifled a smile. As usual Gav was making the worst progress through his food of any of them. "When a member of the E4 goes missing, steps down before their contract is up or passes away unexpectedly, they'll have a Gym Leader roundtable and temporarily fill the slot of that member with—what was it?" he asked Tim.

"Whichever Gym Leader has the most seniority on the Gym scene," Tim said.

"Right, right," Gav nodded. "I couldn't remember if it was seniority in the Leader position or seniority in the Gym period."

"So I could be a Gym janitor for ninety years and be voted in as an E4 member?" Jason asked, wiggling his eyebrows.

Victoria rolled her eyes at him, but smiled. "I think Gym Aide would be your aspiration before you could count on that happening. And remember, you would have to have attained the position of actual Leader at least recently to be considered."

"But they only do that when they need an E4 member in a pinch, right?" Gina asked. A second later, she frowned. "Though hell, uh… I guess if we're going to be chucking their current members over to law enforcement they're gonna _be_ in a pinch, huh?"

"They will," Tim said, realization dawning over his face. "So I guess then it's just the question of who's got the most seniority of the Leaders."

"Lily," everyone said in perfect unison.

"Then Avery!" Kaylee piped in.

"Well, there you have it!" Tim said, lifting his hands in the air. "That was easy!"

"That wasn't my question!" Gina insisted. "I asked who you _wanted_ for E4, not who would get it temporarily after a roundtable."

There were chuckles around the room and the group dissolved into discussion about former Champs, current Leaders, and which of them would make the most badass stand-ins. Gina let herself fade into the background, just enjoying the heated debates, pot-shots, eager consensus and alliances formed between Team Zayne, Team Janine, and Team Armstrong.

* * *

After dinner the group dispersed slowly. Some stayed up for a while, talking and very slowly cleaning pots, pans and plates. Others turned in early, stretching and yawning, and were silent in their tents moments later.

In the end Gina volunteered to take first watch, not realizing until after she offered that there was someone else already slotted for the first of the two spots.

"Cool," Gav said, cracking his neck and rubbing his face. "You and Amaris, then. Just wake up Kay when you're heading to bed, and she and Beth'll take over for you two."

Before long the last of the others had retreated for the night, and Gina and Amaris were left outside in the chill that was only manageable because of their attire. Gina took her time with the fire, coaxing it and controlling it back down into something smaller and more manageable. It was only for warming themselves, not for bringing food to temperature any longer, and she scooted up close to it. She felt like she was acting in a play, painfully aware of every muscle in her face, every twitch of her eyes. Amaris wasn't even looking at her, but he didn't need to be. She knew he'd pick up on any awkwardness she projected, and so she couldn't project any at all. It was exhausting, and it wrenched at her.

She wasn't sure when she made the decision to stop. Things were weird and they both knew it. Pretending not only felt futile, but was.

Gina turned to Charizard, who had curled himself up a little further away from the fire. "Hey buddy?" she said. He didn't move. She knew he was awake and ignoring her, so she merely arched an eyebrow and waited. Sure enough, he cracked one of his teal eyes open a moment later. "I'm gonna take a walk. Make sure the fire doesn't go out?"

Charizard gave a soft, chuffing scoff, rolled his eye, and closed it. He did, however, deign to move closer to the fire, and after a moment curled his tail around it.

Gina got up from her spot. She dusted off her knees and the backs of her thighs, then turned to Amaris. "Would you like to join me?"

She hadn't thought it was a sudden move, but apparently he was on the jumpier side tonight. He twitched a little, glanced up at her, then looked back down. Gina shrugged even though he wasn't looking anymore, and fought through the twisting stab in her chest. She refused to let any of it show on her face. She had to get better about that.

"No pressure," she said easily. Then she made her way a little unsteadily along the dim terrain. She knew the only logical place to wander was towards the narrower tunnel that bled soft turquoise light off in the distance. Anywhere else she wandered would be too dark.

She hadn't known what she was expecting. Amaris just hadn't been the same since Pallet, and she couldn't expect to have the power to change that. The heaviness in her chest was from what she was trying to call a temporary setback, but it felt an awful lot like defeat.

For a few steps Gina's own crunching footfalls masked the sounds of the ones coming up behind her. She stopped, though, and the other steps continued. Before she could decide how to feel about it, Amaris drew level with her. He took her hand in his and she only had time to feel the quickest jolt of hot surprise before he pressed her walking stick into her palm and closed her fingers around it.

"I don't know why you thought you could go somewhere without that," he said, his eyes tired but one eyebrow arched skeptically.

Gina was lucky that a grinning smirk and an elbow to the ribs didn't require her voice. She wasn't sure she'd have been able to speak without it breaking just yet. She and her fellow Pallet native made their way closer to the mouth of the tunnel, Gina holding them up as she negotiated some trickier parts of the terrain. Amaris was sure to heave frequent sighs to express to her just how much of a drag she was.

Gina finally chucked ice at the back of his head and he stared back at her over his shoulder, narrowing his eyes in warning. She fought the urge to chuck even more at him, just to see if he'd fight back. A part of her recognized this light teasing, no matter how good it felt, was a delicate thing she had to nurture and protect for now.

They didn't go far into the tunnel, not bleaching their eyes entirely with the brilliant light but also decidedly not in the dark any longer. They hovered in the liminal space in between, one half of their faces lit like day, the other shrouded in night.

Amaris had let Gina precede him into the cave, and it felt like she was casting shadows on him now. Both of their backs were pressed against the cave wall, facing the same direction, taking a break they didn't need. They hadn't hiked long enough to be winded. If Gina turned her head she could still see Charizard's flickering tail, the little fire, and the tiny, dark bumps their friends' tents cut in the warm circle of illumination they'd left behind.

Gina wanted to talk. She wanted to connect again, to joke or to tease, or to address serious matters, or to reminisce, or to do anything at all. Instead they sat quietly, side-by-side, while she struggled in vain to think of something to say. She didn't like jumping to conclusions, but a part of her felt like Amaris could sense it—her discomfort, her need to fill the quiet, and the way it wasn't natural between them any longer. She'd seen it before, too, the way he'd make a stab of effort to return to them, only to fight back a wince and double back the way he'd come. She didn't quite understand, and now she was at a loss for what to do. She had no plan, coming out here with him. That seemed glaringly obvious now.

They'd been quiet for too long. It was like a timer had reached zero in Amaris' head. He sighed and pushed back from the wall. "Don't stay out too long," he said, as he turned back to return the way they'd come.

Or, as he tried to return the way they'd come. Gina's hand whipped out and caught his wrist before he'd even made it half a step away. "Wait," she said. She fought the urge to release him when she felt him go stiff under her touch. "Amaris, wait," she said again. It wasn't a plea, nor a demand. It just sounded tired to her.

He didn't face her, he didn't come back, but he didn't throw her hand off either. He simply did nothing, staring out into the dark, and Gina went from staring at the shattered turquoise light caught in the coppery red of his hair down to where her fingers were still clasped around his wrist. She had no words, but that wasn't an option anymore. She had to have _some_ words, or she'd waste this thing she started.

"I'm your _friend_ ," she finally said, her voice so quiet and defeated. She desperately wanted it not to be, but was so beyond helping that now. "If you'd let me be."

Amaris didn't say anything, but again the fact that he wasn't leaving told her she might be onto something. She gave him just the gentlest tug, and, just like that, he took half a step backwards and turned, not all the way back to face her, but a fraction. She could see a slice of his face now, just the suggestion of one eye, a hint of a troubled expression.

She swallowed hard and focused just on breathing in the sharp, cold air for a second. "It's just—you can't keep beating yourself up like this. I don't like to admit it any more than you do, but what we do now? Who we _are,_ now?" She gave his wrist another squeeze and he took the rest of that first step back, pressing his back against the cavern wall once more. Gina hesitated, then dared to let go of his wrist. She didn't want him to feel like a captive here. It had to be his choice to stay. "It's dangerous. It's a risk. _We're_ a risk. And we can't—do anything about that now. We can't…" To Gina's horror, heat scored its way violently up her throat. _Not now,_ she told herself. She couldn't afford to cry now. If she was going to reach him she had to appeal to his logic. It was how she'd always had to deal with him before, so now should be no different.

She pulled in a deep breath, and though she let it out in a way that sounded shaky even to her ears, when she finished her sentence it was steady. "We can't keep anyone safe. But in the end? If they weren't helping us they'd only be safe for a short amount of time. This thing we're fighting to destroy—it'll take away everyone's safety sooner than later if we don't stop it."

She sucked in a careful breath again, then let it out slow. Amaris still hadn't said anything, but his stillness and his quiet felt more like acceptance. He was at least listening to what she was saying—it was so much more than she'd achieved with him in months. She knew he hated it, but she looked at him—really looked, at whatever parts of his face he let her see. There was the haunted something in his bright eyes, so magnified by the light he was finally facing now. It was something she couldn't reach, or even guess at, and she knew he wasn't ready to share.

She reached for him again, not even sure what she was going to do, and even as he recoiled he began to speak.

"It's not you," he said, his voice rough and ragged. "You—stay. You can stay. I just—I don't know how—"

But Gina retracted her hand and shook her head at him, and at long last he looked up to meet her eyes. There was something so exhausted, so wounded there, so frustrated at himself and so sorry that any lingering confusion or sadness she'd felt at his knee-jerk refusal disappeared.

"You don't have to explain anything," she said. "Not now, anyway." She cast her gaze lower, focusing on the shadows they cut on the icy terrain. "But… will you tell me? Someday?"

They shared a pause, Gina backlit and Amaris lit up by the blue light, her fingers frozen in her gloves, her nose and the tips of her ears miserably numb, but everything else inside her burning up. It lasted for such a long time Gina didn't think he was going to answer at all.

When he did, it was with the only two words she ever could have asked from him. "I'll try."

* * *

The following morning Gina actually woke up fairly warm in spite of the fact that they were surrounded by snow. Their insulated tents reflected their body heat back to them, and two layers of fluffy socks warmed Gina's feet. The group didn't seem to be in a huge hurry to hit the road, and packed at a leisurely pace, chatting and revisiting parts of the conversation from the night previous. It looked like there was some heavy betting going on about whether or not Lily would want to take the E4 spot. The consensus sounded like a no. That generated talk of who the fourth member would be after Avery. Gina quietly tracked their happy, competitive babble as she destroyed any remaining traces of their fire, burying it in slushy ice.

They moved on through the tunnel and she let her eyes linger on the place where she'd had her first meaningful breakthrough with Amaris since Pallet. A tiny smile took her. The expression on Amaris' face was tired and subdued this morning, but it didn't look quite as intense as it normally was.

The group hiked and chatted, but their talk tapered off the longer they walked. There was an unspoken understanding filtering in among them now. There were several landmarks to go, but they knew each one they passed would bring them closer and closer to danger. So when the talk died out completely, Gina couldn't blame anyone.

They found their next landmark not even half a day of walking later.

"Ice calving," Beth murmured, effortlessly calling up the term Gina had been wracking her brain for.

Gina stared up the awe-inspiring, sharp ledge of ice and wondered how it was possible for the turquoise and blue mineral lights to be so clearly visible through it. The ice was almost perfect, clear and bright and free of nearly any crack or imperfection within. They stopped to admire it, no one speaking louder than a hushed murmur. Gina wondered if she was the only one a little leery about passing beneath it. It was such a massive cliff edge of precariously carved ice she was certain all Charizard could do if she released him was get squished alongside her if it came down on top of them.

"Well, we're going the right way," Orion said. "In the image it looks like it's supposed to stay on the left, so… tally-ho."

Victoria and Orion convened over her map and his paintings, coming to a consensus together. Gina felt she could breathe a little easier once they passed out from under the massive ledge of ice.

The group had just started to fall back into comforting babble when the air distorted around Gina. For a minute she thought she was getting lightheaded—was the air thinner here? Then the worst feeling she could imagine filtered in behind her in two quick bursts. It was the unmistakable, displaced air of bodies being teleported away. Gina spun around just in time to watch more than half of their group vanish.


	25. Falling :Beth:

Pokémon Azure

Chapter 25: Falling

(Beth Larson)

"I was looking right at them, I swear!"

"And you didn't see where they went?"

"No! One minute they were there, then everyone was gone."

Beth couldn't see the looks on her friends' faces, but she could picture them: Kaylee with her eyes wide, aggressive, all of it brought forth by her confusion, Blake nearly expressionless except for a hardness in his dark eyes. They were standing back-to-back-to-back, each one of them staring out into a dimly lit, vaguely turquoise expanse of frigid, patchy ice. Their footing here was precarious at best. Not five feet to Beth's left the icy floor dropped down into a forty-five-degree slope. She craned her neck to look that way but couldn't make out much more in this dim lighting. There were mineral lights, but most of them had been buried under years of ice and now only offered the suggestion of color and a wisp of illumination.

"And no one saw any of those blue teleportation diamonds on the floor, right?" Blake asked. Beth felt Kaylee shake her head beside her.

"No. I was actually looking at my feet when we jumped, too."

Beth wracked her brain for anything she'd heard about the Seafoam Islands that hinted to this anomaly, but came up blank. "This doesn't make any sense. This isn't even a natural habitat for Abras or anything like that. I mean, sometimes Psychic Pokémon will set up traps for those who get too close to their dens, but that shouldn't have been a problem here."

"So we were split up on purpose," Blake said. Even as the words left him Beth knew they must be true.

"Shit," Kaylee grumbled. "I know we don't have reception, but…"

They had no other option but to try. Backs still pressed together, they assembled their phones and waited with as much patience as they could while their devices figured themselves out after being inactive for so long. Beth lifted hers in the air, but knew immediately that the little "x" over her reception bars wasn't going away.

"Well, crap," Blake said.

"Who knows if we got taken farther ahead or back," Kaylee mumbled.

Beth craned her head more to take in their surroundings. "Well," she reasoned, "there are mineral lights here. I mean, the big crops, not the manicured ones that lead you along a path. I think it's safe to say we're still in the second section."

"Good," Blake said. Beth knew he was grateful they wouldn't have to deal with the miniscule cave entrance over the once-rushing river a second time.

"Though that doesn't narrow it down," Beth allowed. "I don't even know which way we should start walking."

"Should we even walk at all?" Blake asked. "In Victory Road when we got split up after the Onix attack it was Haunter who eventually found us all… maybe we should stay put."

"Fair point," Kaylee said, and Beth felt a gigantic shudder take her friend. It was considerably colder where they were, which gave Beth a clue—they might be deeper underground.

"Let's at least get a little farther away from this ledge," Beth said, peering down the malevolent slope with uneasiness. Her walking stick was packed away since the previous area had offered more than enough rock to break up the ice.

"Aw, nervous?" Blake teased. Beth snorted at him.

"Uhh, yeah! If I fall off a cliff I can't flippity-flip myself to safety like _some_ people can."

"Flippity-flip," Blake repeated thoughtfully. "I like it. That's officially the name for what I do now."

They took a second to get their bearings and agreed to start walking to a better-lit spot higher up where the ground seemed to even out. Beth was just beginning to calm down when her foot slipped.

In the space of a blink all the air rushed out of her body as she landed full on her front and immediately began to slide back. She tried to call out but only managed a cough, unable to fill her lungs, only able to scrabble for handholds in the unforgiving, slick ice. She saw Kaylee dive to the ground and wildly reach for her hand, but they missed each other by inches.

Beth hiked her legs up to try to dig the tread of her boots into the terrain, slipped again, and then she was over the ledge to the steeper slope. She heard Kaylee scream her name, and then her whole world focused into a pinpoint.

Starmie. Starmie was her one shot now, because Kaylee's scream told her everything she needed to know about what waited for her at the end of this slope. She was sliding so fast now. With one hand she slammed her fist into the ice, trying to break it, trying to get at least one handhold. With the other she reached for the hem of her jacket, struggling to uncover her Pokébelt. Her heart was screaming in her chest but Beth grabbed hold of her nerves. She had time. She had a few seconds to get this right before she plummeted over the edge. She had time.

But she didn't. With a treacherous crack beneath her prone body that stopped her breath and the blood in her veins, Beth's icy platform began to give way. Scrambling at the disintegrating ground only slowed her decent by fractions of a second—just long enough for her to see Blake dive over the edge, sliding closer and reaching out desperately for her hand. Her eyes found his face and his hand closed tight around her wrist just as red light blinded her.

Beth hadn't reached her belt—Blake had hit his. The ground gave away and Beth whipped her hand around to grab Blake's wrist.

When the light illuminated not creamy white and brown feathers, but russet orange ones, Beth's only thought was _we're dead._ Then they were in terrible, wildly spinning freefall.

It lasted for an eternal, solitary second. Then something slammed into them from the side and Beth's fingers slipped from Blake's wrist. But he never let her go. He hauled her into his arms and wrapped himself around her, their legs tangling together, and Beth buried her face in his jacket. The breath that had been absent now tore paths in and out of her lungs so hard it hurt. They weren't falling anymore, but weren't gaining height—they were being jerked back and forth. Beth was certain for a second that Fearow was trying to dash them into pieces against the remainder of the icy slope.

Then, slowly, they evened out and began to rise. Beth dared to turn her face to the side, to try to get her bearings, and didn't understand a thing she saw at first. It was all dark with no frame of reference, but then she saw a patch of greenish-blue light and the outline of Kaylee waving her arms frantically to give Fearow direction. She couldn't see anything else but caught a tearing, wrenching sound moments before a deafening series of electronic clatters told her a seam had ripped in Blake's bag. They were losing all their tech equipment down the icy slope.

Fearow overshot Kaylee and dropped Beth and Blake off higher up the terrain. The ground was solid rock here, steady and level and absolutely perfect.

Beth hadn't noticed how hard she was shaking—or maybe she hadn't been shaking before. Blake and she were still locked together in a vice grip, strangling the life out of each other, and Beth heard the distant sound of a Pokémon deploying. She knew Kaylee was riding an Arcanine up the rest of the icy path to get to them.

Beth hadn't noticed it before, but she did now. She could feel each erratic, wild breath Blake took. She could actually hear the frantic pounding of his heart, even through all his layers. She buried her face into his chest again, trying to catch her breath, and so she felt it, too, when he took in three slow, steadying lungfuls of air. Then he went still.

Beth pulled back a few inches, just enough to see his face, and the look he gave her was one of muted warmth, affection and amusement. "HM02. Booya."

Tears sprang to Beth's eyes and she hiccupped her way through the abhorrent mess of her reply. "S-so much b-better than 03, screw Surf, I'm a c-convert, I swear."

"Liar," he said quietly, so much raw feeling in his voice. Beth's world lost everything but him for the space between two heartbeats.

"Beth!" Beth turned in time to see Kaylee leap off Arcanine, stumble, right herself, and ultimately collapse on the ground beside her. All her friend could get out for a time was a torrent of _oh my god_ as she scrambled across the rock on all fours. Beth met her halfway to yank them together into a hug. Kaylee was shaking too, and after a short moment the Fire-trainer hauled Blake into a three-way embrace. Beth let her brain fuzz out with nothing but the residual chill in her bones and the comforting heat of her friends to anchor her to this moment.

* * *

"So, the camera equipment is gone."

"Yyyep. Yep it is."

Beth, Kaylee and Blake were seated together in a circle, their limbs rubbery with exhaustion. Kaylee was a shivering wreck and her shoulders jumped every so often with a new twitch of cold. Nevertheless, her red-rimmed eyes held the kind of weird relaxation they did once a disaster was laid to rest.

Beth knew she should eat, but the granola bar in her hands remained unwrapped, just a token that she was flipping over and over again to draw comfort from the small movement. A thought occurred to her and a tiny smile tugged at the side of her mouth.

"So, Blake," she said. "I didn't realize Fearow knew HM02."

"Shhh," Blake said, lifting a finger to his lips. "You weren't supposed to pick up on that." Kaylee barked out a laugh and Blake shook his head at Beth as if disappointed. "Let me have my awesome one-liner."

Their friends hadn't found them yet and Beth knew it was a heavy weight to carry. They'd all been through enough situations like these to know that sometimes brainstorming was just fretting in a fancy suit. So they talked and joked and ribbed each other. Beth was slowly able to make it through her pre-packaged dinner.

Kaylee sniffled heavily every so often, and Beth knew it was only partly because she was freezing. She was still suffering the residual aftereffects of powerful fear and relief, and Beth knew if she could see her own face right now she'd have those same red-rimmed eyes.

Blake, for all the world, seemed fine. His expression was tired, but it shared space with that subdued, thoughtful amusement he always wore.

Beth knew better. She'd picked up on it the second they were safe, had listened to him give himself only three long breaths to calm down. Deeper than that, she knew it was so he'd be able to put on a brave face when she looked up. He took all his fear, bright and hot, and packed it away somewhere safe inside so he could make her laugh when she needed it.

Kaylee and Beth were alike in several ways. It was why the girls had become such fast friends. They both led with their hearts, didn't let fear hold them back and acknowledged what-ifs only as information to nod at, not as obstacles that would bar their paths. The only real difference between the way Kaylee tackled the world and the way Beth did was that Kaylee was a little more impulsive.

Beth knew what she would have done in that moment, staring up into Blake's face, listening to him tease her about his superior HM, still locked together from their wild tumble through the air—if she had been more like Kaylee. Here, in a dim, cold cave, with hardly enough light to see ten feet in front of her face, Beth could finally see. She finally knew what she wanted, and if she was being honest with herself, what she had begun wanting long ago.

Blake flipped his wrist over to look at his watch. "Well," he said, a low sigh carrying the word. "If we're not gonna move today we should probably try to get a little rest. It's going on seven."

"A.M. or P.M.?" Kaylee teased.

Blake clicked his tongue and pointed at Kaylee with both hands. "P.M. I've got us covered this time."

"I feel like my grandma, going to bed at seven," Beth murmured, smiling and beginning to undo the tethers that held her rolled-up sleeping bag to her backpack. "And Blake?" she asked. He glanced up at her. "I vote since your heroics lost you your sleeping roll, we lay mine down and use Kaylee's as our blanket."

"Totally," Kaylee agreed.

Blake blinked, a little frown of confusion coming to his face, but then he glanced over at his shredded backpack. "I'll be damned," he said. Kaylee snorted and asked if he'd really not noticed just how many of his personal possessions now lived at the bottom of a cliff. Blake told her to hold her tongue, and Kaylee actually pinched her tongue between her index finger and thumb. Beth cackled as she set up their camp.

She was elected as the monkey in the middle and took up her post without complaint. She settled down on her back with her hands folded over her abdomen, staring up at the cavern ceiling that reflected back a suggestion of blue light. She knew she would have a hard time dropping off to sleep, no thanks in part to how hyper-aware she was of Blake to her left, curled up on his side and facing her. But she didn't have long to get lost in thought.

Kaylee began shivering to her right almost immediately. Her teeth chattered audibly and one or two aborted sounds of misery escaped before she could clamp down on them. Beth frowned at the ceiling before looking over at her. After a second she heard the nylon rustle of Blake propping himself up on one elbow.

"Holy crap. Are you having some sort of actual seizure over there?"

"Sh-shut up," Kaylee groaned. "I'm a F-Fire-trainer. This place s-sucks."

"Alright missy," Beth said, rolling over Kaylee and bumping her into the middle section of the sleeping bags.

"What?" Kaylee asked, flailing a little as Beth positioned her.

Beth rolled over on her side and tucked Kaylee into a bear hug. Blake, catching the drift, moved in behind her to sandwich the girl in place.

"What are you doing?" Kaylee demanded, her voice 25% amused and 75% disgruntled.

"We're toasting you up," Beth said happily, reaching up to mess up Kaylee's hair with one hand.

"We're a B&B service," Blake intoned dryly. Beth laughed so sudden and loud she had to clap a hand over her mouth.

"Ohhh my god," Kaylee groaned, burying her face in Beth's shoulder. "That was _so bad, Blake."_

"I know," he said with a touch of pride. "I'll be here all week." He wiggled his eyebrows at Beth in his peculiar Blake way. She knew the smile that broke out over her face probably looked a lot like pain, so heavy was it with adoration.

Kaylee still shivered for a bit, but gradually started to settle down. When all she experienced were little twitches here and there, Beth knew they had done their job well. The only problem with this setup was that she was now facing Blake directly. He didn't seem tired either, and they locked eyes over Kaylee's head. They were mere inches apart like this.

He quirked an eyebrow at her and she quirked the opposite one back. He lifted his other one instead, and she struggled and failed to lift her opposite one. He lifted both in a clear questioning expression: _what, you can't do that side?_ She frowned at him: _don't judge me._ He tilted his head and gave her serious side-eye: _oh, I judge you hard._

Beth's heart was pounding. She knew she was in trouble. She knew she should cook up some sort of facial expression that would say, _goodnight,_ close her eyes and try to get ahold of herself.

What was worse—what was so much worse was the way he was smiling at her now. Relaxed and calm, even and steady, but with a dim wonder—a barely detectable appreciation that ran deep. It told her what he was thinking of now, in that undercurrent of somber quiet the Nakawas always held.

She knew what had turned him into that three-second wreck before he calmed himself down for her sake. She had seen Blake Nakawa hot off the heels of a near-death experience. She'd watched him pick himself up off the ground after his life was nearly snuffed out more times than she cared to admit. He was wary, still on high alert, but never so much as rattled. Never with his heart pounding hard against her ear like that, struggling for breath. She knew what he'd really been afraid of.

And it was there, in his eyes now. How could she have ever thought them hard to read? Beth closed hers tight, knowing she was giving it all away. She had to turn her attention inward and grasp her control with both hands. He had to be reading it off her face, the way she'd just read his, but she had no other choice.

Because, in the end, a part of her recognized the futility of it all. There might be differences between the way Kaylee lived her life and the way Beth lived hers, but those differences weren't very significant after all.

Beth opened her eyes, took in a tiny half-breath of air, and rushed forward to kiss the small, worried smile Blake was giving her now.

It was longer than the kiss he'd planted on her in Victory Road, but not by much. She pulled back, tugged in the second half of her breath, then held it. What she wouldn't give to be able to school her expression better right now. She knew her eyes were wide, knew there was a rich flavor of fear trying to break through the apprehension radiating from her.

Blake's expression gave her nothing to work with for several long, excruciating seconds. Then, ever so slowly, confusion worked its way across his features.

"That… wasn't one of those… 'near death experience kisses'… was it?" he asked, haltingly.

Beth swallowed, pulled in a breath, swallowed again, and drummed up all her courage. "No," she said. Her voice was pathetic, tiny. She swallowed a third time and spoke a fraction steadier this time. "I'm falling in love with you."

It was so grand and ostentatious. In any other situation she would have judged herself harshly for wording it like that. But here, looking into his face, she had to say it. It was nothing more than the truth, and she had to offer it up wholesale.

Now there was the surprise she'd been expecting to see. She could practically see the machinery grind to a halt behind his eyes. He blinked at her for a few seconds and she bit her lip and fought the urge to bury her face into the top of Kaylee's head to get some space and hide.

"Oh boy," Blake breathed out on an uncomfortable sigh before glancing away. Beth's heart crashed through the ice. "This is gonna be… awkward. I really—" He flicked his eyes back her way and his face shifted into a look of mingled surprise mixed with an amused disbelief. " _What?_ No, you—I, I'm joking. God."

Then he reached up and pulled her back to him for a second kiss.

Beth let out a sound that could only be classified as a sob against his face. He chuckled at her, and it was awkward and messy and beautiful.

"Sorry," he murmured. "I guess that was a bad time to joke?" She nodded furiously, her forehead bumping against his. He grinned again and she kissed the look off his face in a bumbling, desperate way. Her own happiness bubbled up as helpless giggles from inside her.

"Umm, _guys?_ " Kaylee said from between them. Beth nearly choked on an awkward burst of laughter. "Great job and all but I am _literally_ in between you right now."

"Oh," Blake said, looking down at her thoughtfully. "Hmm." Then he leaned down and pecked a kiss to the top of her head.

"What!?" Kaylee exclaimed, squirming hard, but Beth held her in place and kissed her head three more times, ending each one with a theatrical _mwah!_

"Don't worry!" Beth said, her voice still broken and shaky. "We would never leave you out!"

Beth and Blake were both deemed "the worst," a tie for first place over the esteemed title. Beth couldn't decide the entire time whether it was more pressing to laugh or cry.

* * *

 _Author's note: I am back! Apologies for the delay, everyone. As a reminder, I reply to reviews in my main profile page!_


	26. Out In The Open :Orion:

Pokémon Azure

Chapter 26: Out In The Open

(Orion Fremont)

The silence was so protracted and perfect Orion might as well have been alone.

But he wasn't. Orion had been teleported with only one person, and as luck would have it, that person was Tim. They had exchanged maybe thirty words, determining neither had seen where the others had gone. Then Tim released Jynx and they'd teleported forward through a long section of tunnel until, all at once, Jynx was no longer able to move them. They progressed ahead on foot, hoping to track their way through the area and find their friends.

Orion knew they hadn't been kicked back into the first section of the Seafoam Islands because of the blue mineral lights that grew in untamed streaks, but he didn't know much else. So far he hadn't seen any of the landmarks he'd painted, or recognized anything else they'd passed through before. Once or twice the paths forked, but Tim and Orion fell into a strange unspoken pattern. Tim would choose one of their turns, then Orion, then Tim. It was the only thing that felt effortless between them.

They didn't say a damned thing to each other for hours. Blake was their official time keeper, but Orion did still possess a functioning watch. He checked it now, cleared his throat, and muttered, "hey."

Tim froze before turning to look back at him, his expression remote, his eyes cold. Orion had to fight the urge to snap at him and instead took a slow breath. "We should catch a nap, at least. It's going on midnight."

Tim narrowed his eyes as if trying to decipher what Orion meant. Orion thought he understood that confused look. Why would he, of all people, want to kick back and relax instead of move forward?

Orion sighed. "Whatever we end up finding, we don't want to respond to it exhausted."

A weary acceptance flickered across Tim's face, and after a moment he nodded. Tim took first watch, and when Orion took second he had the strong suspicion the Champ hadn't been able to drop off to sleep. It didn't matter, though. At least they were resting their muscles, if not their minds.

They took off again at four in the morning, as silent as ever. Orion had been more than happy to avoid an unpleasant confrontation with Tim during the long stretch of time they'd spent together at his mother's house. Now it seemed like a grievous oversight not to get this all out in the open earlier. Orion alternated between stubbornly refusing to mend that bridge and wracking his mind for what in the world he could have done to make Broome's cautious wariness curdle into full-blown disdain.

His temper was wearing thin by the time they hit another fast-moving stream. The path they walked dumped out into a T-fork, the right side nearly all water. The tiny path broke down into the current only a dozen yards down. That meant their only option was uphill and upstream to the left.

They walked on the narrowing, precarious bridge for a time, neither wanting to admit this might be a dead-end. When their little strip of walking path disappeared too, they stopped to regroup.

"How fast is the current?" Tim asked, looking down into the river. It was the first piece of conversation the Champ had initiated since they teleported away together.

Orion stooped down, clutching some uneven rocks with one hand to anchor himself. He dipped his other hand into the stream. He could see the current rushing past, but he hadn't expected it to be so strong. He had to strain all the muscles in his arm and shoulder to keep his hand from being swept back. "Pretty fast," he said, standing and whipping the residual water from his fingertips. "It's not as bad as the first river, but I don't think our Pokémon can Surf it."

"You mean my Pokémon," Tim said. Orion was glad he wasn't facing the Champ; the expression of absolute irritation that filtered across his face couldn't be hidden. Tim had said it flat and tired, not like he was rubbing this fact in Orion's face, but Orion was already too on edge to appreciate the reminder.

"We can do what we did before," Orion said, looking back down the river. "One of us scouting ahead with something to drop in other water sources. See where to block the way." But neither of them seemed sold on that idea.

"What we need is a path," Tim said. "I wonder if we can carve one out of this wall."

"Seems like a hefty construction project," Orion said, wincing at the sheer amount of work that would take.

Now it was Tim's turn to look aggravated. "I don't mean a fancy strolling path along the side. We could just drop rocks into the water, use those as stepping stones."

"I still think that would take a long time," Orion countered, glancing upriver now.

"It really wouldn't, if my Strength Pokémon punched out rocks from the cliff wall as we went," Tim mumbled. "But if you've got a better idea? Be my guest."

Orion knew they were getting on each other's nerves, but also knew they couldn't let that stand in their way. He let out a slow breath. "What do you think would happen if we dammed the river right here and tried to swim up?"

"The water level would rise and it'd just end up flooding over the blockade anyway," Tim explained. Orion groaned, but a second later Tim added, "But if we _partially_ dam it, water can still get through, just slower… it might slow down the current enough that we can quickly Surf up before things get too backed up."

"Okay," Orion said, desperate to latch onto any middle ground at this point. They had to get some kind of forward momentum going or they'd lose their minds and take it out on each other.

Tim let out Primeape and Orion briefly considered bringing out Clefable, just to see if it could produce some Rock Throw boulders through Metronome again. But he thought better of it. It would be just their luck to flee the tunnel hacking and coughing from Smog, or get blasted straight into the current by Gust.

Orion watched, feeling useless, while Primeape pounded down rocks, debris and larger boulders from the cave walls. Tim and his Pokémon focused just on that for a time. When Tim started moving the larger rocks into the river to get them out of Primeape's way, Orion jumped in to help. He could at least handle the weaker grunt work that freed up their more talented Pokémon to work his magic.

He was also grateful for the pounding fists and wrenching scrape of rock against rock. It meant any attempts at conversation would have been drowned out anyway. Tim and he were allowed to lapse into focused quiet rather than struggle through uncompanionable silence.

It soon became clear, however, that Tim's idea of partially damming the river and Orion's differed. Orion had been laying the rocks down flat in a layer at the bottom and Tim had been building vertically to completely funnel the river into a point in the middle. Once they realized they were working against each other they stopped and stared at one another.

"What are you doing?" they asked each other in unison. Then, still in tandem, they jerked their heads back as if the confusion was a spiderweb they'd just walked into. They both tried to talk at the same time again and Tim went stubbornly quiet, refusing to speak until Orion went first.

"You said to partially dam it," Orion said.

"Yes," Tim agreed. "That's what I'm doing. What are you doing?"

"Partially damming it," Orion shot back.

"How is that going to make a difference?" Tim asked skeptically, staring at the row of boulders Orion was layering down at the bottom of the river, stacking them like a low brick wall. "The current won't slow down. It'll roll right over the top."

"Your way there's a ton of pressure funneling straight down the middle," Orion pointed out. "It's more likely that your rocks will fall apart under the strain."

"Are you actually speaking with any kind of authority?" Tim asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Are _you?_ " Orion countered.

"I actually am," Tim said. "I may not have done this a ton, but I had to do something similar during my travels."

Orion brought his hands up in a "don't shoot" pose, but his tone was laden with sarcasm. "Oh, forgive me," he sneered. "Didn't realize I was in the presence of an expert."

"I've had it with you," Tim snarled suddenly, and Orion, hackles already up, felt ready to throw down right here and now, soaked up to their knees from the river.

Tim saw something flicker across Orion's face he didn't like, because his blue gaze sharpened. His expression became so challenging, so ready to fight, that Orion privately deemed himself superhuman for not driving his fist straight into that face.

Orion breathed hard and deep, but as slowly as he could. For just a second a flicker of uncertainty passed across Tim's face and, he couldn't be certain, but he thought he detected a trace of guilt. Unable to unpack that, and not even sure if it was real or imagined, Orion closed his eyes. It took all of the rest of his effort.

This was the side of him he hated the most. Once, just once, he wanted to feel the way he used to feel when faced with confrontation. He wanted the old Orion back, the one who smiled too much and laughed nervously when things got tense, even though that unfortunate reaction had gotten him into trouble all on its own. He wanted the version of himself that would have lifted his hands in the "don't shoot" pose, but not sarcastically, not to throw it in his opponent's face, rife with mockery. He wanted his knee-jerk reaction to be a soothing one, a _you and me versus the problem_ take instead of _you versus me, and I'll be damned if I lose_.

His deep breaths weren't helping much, but somewhere inside his hot bubble of anger was punctured a little by sad confusion. He just wished he knew what he'd done wrong. Sure, he hadn't been Tim's biggest fan, and he'd known the feeling was mutual… but something had changed. And he'd never bothered to try to figure it out.

When they spoke up, they did it at the same time once again. "Look—" Orion snapped his eyes open in time to see Tim lift his eyebrows in slight surprise. There was still frustration and strain between them, but now discomfort was adding more weight to its end of the scale. "No, you—" they both started again, and when a twin tired huff of laughter escaped them, Orion was able to lower his face into his hands and let a wry smile crack out onto his face.

"Alright," Orion said, slowly. His voice was ragged, rough and tired. He scrubbed his hand along his sweaty brow and took in another deep breath before sighing it out. It actually felt marginally better this time. "I guess we should probably… air this out," he said. "Whatever this is. And I guess that's what you were about to say too?" Exhaustion rolled over him from both the constant tension and the lack of sleep. Tim nodded mutely. "That's good," Orion said, unable to think of anything else to say.

Luckily Tim had a direction to lead the conversation in. "Want us to just take turns? One talks, the other listens, no interrupting?"

Orion nodded. "That sounds good. I don't really have much to say so… I guess I can go first." He also had an ulterior motive. He had a feeling Tim's grievances were heftier. Orion didn't want his half of this coming clean session to be colored in any way by whatever offense he might take to Tim's words.

Tim nodded. "Sounds good, man."

Orion nodded back, shifting his gaze to the side and letting a small frown color his features. He really didn't have a lot to say, but it was still hard to word it. His hand rose to his hair, a holdover of an awkward gesture he'd used time and time again as a kid. "I don't… really have a problem with you. I guess at first I was nervous. I mean, Kaylee's invested in you. A lot. Of course you know her well enough to know she never does anything half-ass." Orion hadn't even thought he was going to bring Kaylee up, but he knew as he spoke that he'd needed to. It was where his misgivings had begun, and Orion had to drag that out into the open, especially if it had paved a bad foundation for them straight out of the gate. "She's 110% in everything she does in life and, you know… love isn't any exception." He had no idea if Tim knew that Kaylee had once had feelings for him, but he'd be damned if he was going to bring that up directly.

He frowned at the rocks that made up the side of the river, constantly lapped at and eroded by water. "I guess it's hard to trust anyone. Even though you, Nick and Casey have done us nothing but favors. You and she kind of came out of nowhere and… I guess I was just hoping it was serious for you. Not something you're doing because, 'why not.'"

He realized even as he said it that this was probably offensive, and he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Tim had honored his half of the agreement and wasn't saying anything, and Orion silently awarded him points for that. "Just knowing her, and not knowing you very well, I was worried there'd come a point where she cared for you more than you did for her. You're not the easiest person to read. And I know that's rich, coming from me. All that said, though? I definitely _could_ read it on you when things changed between us, and I… don't know why. What I did." He shook his head and pulled one shoulder up, trying not to make the gesture look as helpless as it felt. "That's it."

Orion didn't know what to expect at the end of his meandering, cobbled-together speech. It wasn't Tim blowing out a slow, long sigh that ended with, "Well, shit." Orion lifted his eyebrows, feeling the residual tension slip off his face to be replaced with genuine trepidation and curiosity. Tim looked up at him with an expression that could only be described as pure fatigue.

"You… didn't 'do' anything. Nothing new." That made no sense, but Tim went on. "I found out about something that happened in the past. It was a few weeks back when I heard about this for the first time and… you're right. I've been acting different around you." Orion wanted to ask, but knew he'd tell him soon enough. A knot of tension cinched like a noose in his chest, and he was suddenly and blindingly glad he had chosen to go first.

He didn't have long to dread what Tim was going to dredge up. "Kaylee's arm," he said, and he was unable to keep the tightness out of his tone. Orion, likewise, was unable to keep the grimace from his face. "She… insists, it was completely her fault."

"It wasn't—shit," Orion winced, kicking himself for breaking their "no interrupting" rule. "Sorry."

"No, it's… it helps to hear that. Because I was going to say, Kaylee tends to take responsibility for her actions… and for the circumstances surrounding her actions… and for random other people's actions too." Orion smiled a little hollowly at that, fondness barely making a dent in the massive wave of old guilt. "She told me more or less how it went down. I don't need the details. But knowing it happened… I hope you see where I'm coming from."

Orion decided he sucked at this game. It was so damned hard not to say something. To his surprise, each time he wanted to speak it was not to defend himself, but to assure Tim that he knew what a fuckup he himself could be.

"Thing is, I know you're not that same guy. I know your Pokémon aren't that savage anymore." Orion took no comfort from those words, because he knew they were a prelude to more. "But you're still unpredictable. You can't tell me you aren't. You're an AGER and—"

Tim cut himself off then with a frustrated sound, raking his fingers through his short hair. Orion hadn't had time to process his own reaction to those words before Tim barrelled on. "The more I interact with AGERS… Anderton, Mason, Owen, Sergio, Glen… the more it messes with my head." He dropped his hands to his sides and looked at nothing, some place past Orion and through the cave walls into anywhere else. "I don't want to paint you with that broad brush. But the fact remains that you and your father are the only two AGERS who even bother to fight against your nature."

It almost felt like that was a compliment, but Orion knew it was also a bleak statement of the reality of the situation. He remained silent, struggling to remind himself to wait, to listen and to shut up while this tentative thing happened.

Tim frowned, something seeming to occur to him, and he cast his icy blue gaze down to the frigid river they still stood in. "You… I need to address something you said, earlier. About Kaylee, and how you worry I feel about her?" Orion braced himself for anger. Tim looked up and eyed him hard for a second, but it felt less like a challenge of who would blink first, and more a deep, searching assessment.

"You're wrong," Tim said simply. "You are so wrong about that."

Orion felt like he should wait, or press Tim for more, but as the silence stretched between them he understood that more was not coming. Orion regarded Tim, and was regarded in return, and he saw with a somber clarity that Tim was not lying. He nodded, because it seemed like Tim needed an answer, and this was the best one he could give without verbally interrupting.

Tim averted his eyes once the answer was given, the frown coming back to his face. "I don't have much more," he said. "I don't know how you're gonna take this next part, but… the group?" He glanced up at Orion, his eyes tired, so much older than the actual young man who owned them. "They had to try so hard not to fall apart without you. I don't know what they were like, before. But I can see it now, I think. Now that you're back."

Exquisite pain and brilliant confusion raked through Orion's chest, and he felt it transform his face, no longer so effortlessly hard and cold the way it had been during his long months away. Tim stared into that expression, going silent for a moment, before he went on. "I see how Zahlia is now, how Kaylee is. Jason's harder to figure out, sometimes, but I see it on him too. And I compare that to how they were when I first met them all…" He shook his head. "I get why you left. But it's hard for me to accept, to see all that pain you caused in people I grew to care about. I know that's not fair. But there it is."

All of the things Orion had wanted to say evaporated. Now that Tim had laid his final words to rest at his feet, there was absolutely nothing. Tim at least wasn't looking at him, instead staring down at their failed attempt to meet in the middle, rocks laid flat along the bottom of the river, rocks piled high to force it to a point.

What ended up coming out of his mouth had nothing at all to do with the very serious subjects they had just discussed. He watched the rushing flow of water, pulling ceaselessly around their feet in the opposite direction they were so determined to travel, and he opened his mouth and out came, "We should go back."

Tim stared at Orion for a few faltering seconds, just blinking. He frowned, and Orion realized how confusing he'd just been right as Tim spoke. "To something we talked about earlier?"

"No, sorry… sudden topic change. We're not getting anywhere with the river. And there were other forks farther back." Orion suddenly felt less than sane, adrift in his own words. He didn't know what possessed him to say this now, of all times, but to his surprise his random suggestion had a visible impact on Tim.

Tim glanced back the way they'd come, and his furrowed brow smoothed out. A little tension left his shoulders, a little weariness left his eyes. He eyed the path thoughtfully, then shrugged a shoulder. "Yeah. This is taking too long."

Orion privately felt his own rush of pure relief was over the top for the situation. They were merely giving up on a failed project. It wasn't like Tim and he were square—there was more to figure out, but just this one decision, this one act of turning their backs on this place felt so bizarrely good.

"So like," Tim started as they waded to the ledge. "I know I didn't say I was done but, I was done."

"Oh," Orion said. There was an awkward beat, and he nodded. Then he realized Tim wasn't looking, so he verbalized it as, "yeah."

"Which… means you can talk. And I kind of, really want you to." Tim glanced at Orion over his shoulder in time to see Orion's look of naked surprise, and gave him a weary smile in exchange. "You're not the only one who was nervous as fuck about all that."

Orion felt it break out across his face before he even realized what it was. He was already done laughing out an apologetic, "Wow, yeah, no kidding, uh, me too," before he caught on. Somewhere in the midst of all this slowly-breaking tension, his awkward, crooked smile had returned. It was effortless and authentic, not forced like a careful stretch to a torn muscle. He swallowed hard, then fumbled on. "Well, I'm not… going to punch you or anything."

"Always a good place to start," Tim said, a little buoyancy in his tone now. After a breath, he turned a sly and short flash of his teeth Orion's way. "I could take you, anyway."

"I'd like to see you try," Orion fired back, his smile growing, still wary but stronger every second. "I'm a big scary AGER, remember?"

"Oh, please." But Tim was smiling back now, tentative and genuine. All they had behind them were icy puddles in the footprints that led them away from the failed dam.

The conversation didn't flow without effort, but it was smoother. They walked and dried out, damp and cold but moving forward. They clarified one or two points from their earlier talk, but it was a lot of validation of each other's viewpoints, a lot of _yeah_ and _no, I get it._ Before long, the hard part was as far away as the T-fork and the river.

Orion wasn't even looking for landmarks anymore when he spotted one. It looked as if part of the wall to their right had been struck by a wrecking ball, or blasted by a lightning strike which froze itself in place. The blue mineral lights beneath the point of impact were ruptured, enormous, yawning fissures in unique forks that Orion had sketched, refined and then carefully painted.

"Tim," he said, nodding to the wall. Tim glanced his way, and took a second, but then the Champ's face lit up.

"Oh shit. That's where we're supposed to go next," he said, his voice heavy with a disbelieving wonder.

Orion felt something dangerously like a grin take his face. "But… we should wait for the others," he noted, his eyes nevertheless staring down that new tunnel with undisguised hunger.

"We should," Tim allowed. "But we can take a small look. We'll double back after ten minutes," he promised, sounding like the words were more for himself than Orion.

"Sounds good," Orion said, already moving toward the new path.

It was like a switch had been thrown inside them. Their conversation was calm before, but now a new, foreign elation had risen up inside them and between them. Before long it was a challenge not to raise their voices too loud, and keep their conversation topics to a lower murmur. Orion felt how he vaguely imagined a girl at a sleepover might feel. They'd spent the last ten solid minutes doing something that could only be classified as relationship gossiping.

"Yeah, they're totally an item, and I can't believe Casey isn't fessing up to me. I mean, I kept my relationship with Kaylee a little hush at first, but…"

"But that was you, so it was okay," Orion teased, and Tim shot him a not-serious glare and a _hey!_ Orion grinned his way. "But seriously, I'm glad I'm not imagining that shit."

"Nope, you are not. He's damned good at dodging my questions though. Even really pointed ones like, 'so, why do you and Alana show up at the same time when we summon you for meetings in the middle of the night?'"

"How do you even dodge that?" Orion asked, genuinely flabbergasted and also craving this arcane knowledge for himself.

"He openly admits it! But as a joke!" Tim explained with exuberant frustration. "He says, 'well, obviously we're having a torrid affair!' and then winks. But changes the subject before we can get serious with him."

"That mad genius," Orion mumbled, and Tim echoed the sentiment with, _right?!_

When the sound started it was so faint Orion didn't even register it as a sound. It wasn't on his radar at all one second, and then in the next it was. He took a moment to even pick it out from the ambient sounds of the broader, taller cavern they were in. He took another moment to isolate it as something wrong.

He glanced at Tim just as Tim turned to look at him. They didn't have to ask each other anything, and lapsed into complete silence as they moved forward quicker. Even going double their original speed, their footfalls made half the sound they had just seconds ago.

The sound got louder, and as it did it felt less disembodied. It had started sourceless and distant, then grew a little less ambient. Fuzzy, then a little clearer. But even when Orion pieced together what it was, even as Tim and he broke out into simultaneous, sudden sprints, Orion didn't want to believe it.

When it hit Orion it was like he'd just run headlong into a tangible wall. He crumpled as if from a gut punch and went down, and Tim's momentum carried him farther away even as he turned and tried to stop to double back.

Orion was already clambering to his feet when Tim got to him, an aggressive edge of confusion and worry on his face. Orion shook his head, tried to move forward, and snapped both hands up to press into his temples instead. His whole body roiled and spasmed, his breath punching out of him.

"Orion," Tim said, reaching out for his shoulder. Orion fought with everything in him not to lash out, but couldn't fight the full-body flinch from that touch.

"I'm—just give me a…"

"Bull," Tim spat. "What's happening to you?"

Orion shook his head, backed up a step, and felt instantly better. His stomach plummeted through the ice under his boots.

Tim saw the change in him—Orion saw Tim realizing what was going on right before his eyes. The Champ's jaw tightened, and he jerked his chin back, silently demanding Orion to put more distance between himself and that awful, distant sound. It was the last thing he wanted to do, but Orion obeyed.

He leaned heavily on his knees when he was far enough back to be free of the effect, and before he could speak, Tim put it into words. "So this means there's an aggro device up there."

"Fuck," was Orion's way of confirming it.

"If we… we've got earplugs in our bags," Tim suggested, but even as he did so, Orion shook his head, bitterness rising in his throat like bile.

"It won't help. It's not the sound, it's the energy output. I can't get close while it's on."

"Then I'll go scout ahead," Tim said, already half-turning to the haunting noise in the distance, but Orion snapped his hand out for his shoulder and hauled him back to look his way.

"Do _not_ take on whatever is over there alone. _Come back_ and we'll find the others first _._ " Blue eyes burned into blue eyes, and in that electric, crackling second Orion could almost see the gears turning in Tim's head. He could practically make out the shape of the words, _yeah, okay,_ dying to form and be thrown at Orion, just to get him to let go so Tim could leave.

He also saw it when Tim's expression changed, growing heavier and more conflicted, and then, after a slow, uncertain moment, coloring with exhaustion and resignation. He nodded, vaguely, then nodded again, more firm.

"I won't leave you behind," he said, and his words were steady, his gaze even steadier. "I promise."

For a frozen second, Orion knew what he had to do but couldn't bring himself to do it yet. He stared at Tim, and saw that Tim was aware of at least part of what was going on inside his head. There was tension in the Champ's face, but he waited, forcing patience, keeping his expression level. Orion needed those crawling seconds to convince himself this was okay.

"Go," he said, and almost before the word was out, Tim was off like a shot. Orion was pacing before he'd even disappeared down the bend that would carry him toward the unmistakable sound of dozens of screaming creatures.

What felt like fifteen minutes but was probably only two minutes later, Orion realized he should have marked what time Tim ran off. He noted it here instead, which only succeeded in drawing his eyes to his watch every thirty to forty seconds in a ritualized version of extreme worry. He paced, then tested his boundaries at that invisible line where the aggro device's effect didn't exist for him, and where it suddenly and violently did.

Orion edged closer, reeled and stopped. He took a step back, took a deep breath and shifted forward again, slower. He didn't know what he was trying to accomplish, but what he got was the same result delivered to him in creative new ways.

Getting closer to that invisible line hurt. Going slower just made it hurt slower. Going quickly made it hurt quickly. And each time he tested that edge it got a little bit worse.

 _I'm a human being_ , flashed through his fried, furious mind after the seventh awkward attempt to get a different outcome. He hated how unforgiving his condition was, how completely unable he was to mind-over-matter anything about it. There were no tricks, no loopholes.

When the nausea hit him it did so without remorse. Orion doubled up, almost lost his meager, on-the-road protein bar breakfast, and heaved wretchedly for a few seconds before he backed up several feet. Sour sweat snapped out across the hot and cold back of his neck. He backed up even more, like he could make up for his earlier transgressions by simply putting more steps between himself and what had made him ill.

Orion straightened up, shuddered, and turned around just in time to walk straight through Gengar. He stopped so suddenly he nearly fell on his ass.

Zahlia's Pokémon had changed post-evolution, but now he circled Orion with such genuine excited movement that it was like her spontaneous Haunter had returned. Only Gengar's expression remained unchanged, still stern and too serious, but his large red eyes were wide and focused. Orion opened his mouth to speak, only to watch Gengar jet off as if for Orion to follow.

"Wait!" Orion called, his voice louder in that second than he'd wanted. Gengar doubled back at once, attentive and, if Orion could judge from the angle of his eyes alone, confused. "I was with Tim. He went ahead a little. He'll be back soon." He could only pray that was really true.

Orion hadn't counted on Gengar's solution to this problem involving speeding off in the direction Tim had gone. Orion took a lunging step forward and shouted again for the Pokémon to stop, again too loud. Gengar froze and turned back, just at the edge of the area of effect.

Orion let out a shaky breath. "You can't go. It hurts me, right past that point where you are now. If it hurts me, it'll hurt you too."

Gengar studied Orion, his expression sharp, and then slowly, more morose again. With his return to somber seriousness, Zahlia's ghost returned to Orion's side. There the pair of them waited, staring into that invisible part of the Seafoam Islands where neither of them could go.

Orion hadn't realized just how thoroughly afraid he was that Tim wasn't ever coming back until he saw his tiny figure round the bend at a sprint. Orion stood at once from where he'd settled in a crouch, and boiled in frustration at not being able to meet him halfway like he wanted to.

He saw Tim start when he spotted Gengar. He sped up after that, turning his sprint into a full-blown run, but by the time Tim arrived whatever shock he'd had at seeing Zahlia's Pokémon was gone.

It was apparent just how much was wrong when Orion could finally make out the details of Tim's face. His stomach flipped when he saw how pale the Champ was, how tightly he clenched his jaw. His hands trembled in and out of fists as he moved them in strange, half-aborted gestures, like they'd lost their way through half a dozen actions.

Orion wanted nothing more than to demand answers from him, but he knew they were coming. He recognized that difficulty Tim faced now, of trying to get actual words out around that much sheer tension and emotion. It was the longest five seconds of Orion's life.

"Pokémon," Tim finally said. The word was breathless from his run, and shaky with rage. "They're in pens. The devices are going off all around them."

Orion couldn't summon any reaction other than a hollowed-out, flat expression of shock for a flickering second. Then he shook his voice free. "Did you see anyone there?"

"No one. Seems unmanned." Tim's sentences were choppy and short, and he raked his hands through his hair. "They're ragged. Some look sick. Some have hurt themselves. On the cages. I think. Running into them."

Orion gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, shocked his very skin wasn't blistering off with the sheer heat of his frustration. "It's time to get the others."

"Damn right it is," Tim said, striding several yards back the way they'd come. Orion was hot on his heels, and once they were a safe enough distance from the edge of the devices' effect, Tim released his Arcanine. Orion took his meaning at once, and waited for Tim to mount before he clambered on awkwardly behind him. This didn't need to be a comfortable ride, and Orion wouldn't even care if he fell off a few times. They just needed to head back to the others, and fast.

Gengar waited until they were situated. Then he sped off like a violet comet, and Tim's Pokémon galloped after him. Orion's world was reduced to the sensation of the ground slamming beneath those four paws and the cold whipping past him as they rode.

* * *

 _Author's Note: Review replies are up and an official update in my profile as well. Sorry for the wait, everyone… the TL;DR version is I'm gutting and revamping my final arc again. More details in the profile if you're interested._


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